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Ancient Memories Part III: The Elemental Wars
- Ancient Memories Part III: The Elemental Wars -
It had been some time since we took the throne of the galactic empire and made it our own. Or had we merely remade a thing that already was ripe for change? It was difficult for me sometimes to try to adjust to my new role... I had not ever been so laden with responsibilities before, but also I had never known so many comforts. Even so, on certain nights I could not sleep easy... and the nightmares in all such hours would begin to stir, manifesting in forms I had not anticipated. On this night, it did seem as if the whole world all around me was shifting out of sync, and the ceiling of the palace bedchambers was vanishing, replaced by a vision of billions of stars beyond counting, shining with light and color far beyond what is normally seen. It was not a natural vision! The walls too seemed to cease to exist, and I was surrounded by infinite vastness on all sides. The elegant red and gold draperies were replaced by wraith-like forms that drifted into view only to vanish when spotted directly. Was was I becoming, I often wondered, that I had these experiences? But there was no name for them, nor for me it seemed. I had the great darkness inside of me, which was also filled with so much light. The only thing that ever could console me was my wife, my Divine Empress who was always there at my side. She lay next to me even now, and I could feel the warmth of her body. But my spirit also felt the coldness of the vast void that I was witnessing before my slumbering eyes. Was I even asleep any longer? And I felt the chill of space, its' frigid cold, against the skin of my astral form. It was summer, and such cold was an impossibility! Then, all of a sudden I beheld an explosion of light and hear the sound of a multitude, all speaking, thinking, laughing, crying, living and dying all at once. It was the very life-force of all that is, and I was frightened by it! I felt like a child again, and began to run. Could I run, in the absence of any gravity? But by thinking I wished to not be there, I was there no more, and I awoke sweating profusely.
Sapphira was awakened by the scream I let out upon my own awakening. Her curly golden hair, all filled with streaks and highlights of brilliant red, seemed to glisten in the morning sunlight that was filtering into the room, its' gentle shafts of radiance seeming to caress all that the light touched. Her big blue eyes looked into my own eyes, and I knew she could sense my distress. “You saw it again, didn't you?” she asked without it really even being a question. I replied: “Yes... I saw the source of all that is, and it filled me with such a tremendous fear, because this is not any sight, not any thing that mortals should know or experience. It was... too much, even for me to bear.” She leaned over, and kissed my face gently and softly. She confessed: “I know, for I have seen its' direct opposite in my own dreams. Visions, to be honest, for these are not dreams as people label such things.” We were both something not quite human, and perhaps we never truly were human fully to begin with. No one other than we two, could comprehend our understand such things! I had yet to encounter another like unto us, even in all my time as Divine Emperor. Sapphira began to sing the words of an old song: “I am the child who dwells within your heart, the angel whose wings caress your soul... let my light disperse the dark, and let my darkness protect you from the terrible light. Let me do my part, let my words deeply console! Let my light disperse the dark, and let my darkness protect you from the terrible light.” and that was how we started that morning off. Along with other, far more pleasant things. It would be a very good day!
The empire had become gentler under our guidance, its' peoples happier and more content than ever they had been under the older, stricter regimes of the past. Yet, for every contented soul there was that one person who felt anger in their heart, or sorrow in their soul... whom all comforts could not hope to reach. I too felt ill at ease sometimes, but not like that... never like that. For me, it was a different thing. I feared that everything was too good to be true, that this peaceful time was an illusion doomed to be dispersed by some crueler reality that lay beneath the surface. I wanted nothing more, than for this far more beautiful era to last and endure forever. Or at least until my dying day, whenever that may come.
There was so much joy in my life right now! From our soft bed, I could see the gardens outside and I could smell the lovely scents of all the flowers there. I was elated by that, invigorated by it! Even as the beauty of my beloved Sapphira likewise made me feel uniquely alive. Whole domes now contained the same sort of beauty as existed in our gardens... nature was very quickly reclaiming whole stretches of the planet of New Corinthia, under the watchful guidance of the planet's chief environmental scientists and scholars. It was no longer as vast of an urban sprawl as it once had been, and there was the talk that within our lifetimes it was possible that some of the protective domes could be removed to allow the planet's rapidly healing atmosphere... now becoming toxin-free... to finally be experienced. No more need for artificially created atmospheres! That was unthinkable when we first came to power, but now things were changing fast in a time in which there was no war. “Soon, you know, there will be rain to be felt, again! Rather than this perpetual summertime we know now.” Sapphira mentioned as we made ready to get up out of bed and get on with the day. “Rain! Clean rain...” I muttered, thinking back on how some of the rain on my home planet of Gehenna Primus was actually said to be polluted. On the days when the toxic rains fell, we had to remain indoors or wear protective coverings in order so as not to be sickened by the touch of it. We would have to reclaim that planet too, one day... but such was a slow, slow process and at least in my own lifetime I would not see such a project through to its' final phases. I felt young still, but I knew that I was not. Even as Sapphira never aged a single day, due to her unique bodily mutations that allowed her remain young in body seemingly forever. A forbidden and forgotten technology, which was still apparently practiced by some in secret. But in my life, Sapphira was the only one I knew of who had undergone such a procedure... and was not driven mad over time.
The servants came to make the bed as we dressed ourselves for the day. I wore a red jumpsuit that was sleeveless, with billowing pant legs tied with drawstring at the waist and ankles, and about my waist a golden sash belt tied in a neat bow. I wore gold slipper-like shoes, and some favorite pieces of jewelry that I was fond of. Sapphira wore a pair of pink bloomer-like shorts made of a shimmery type of material, and that was paired with a shimmery blue peasant-style blouse with long, puffy sleeves. She wore pink slipper-like shoes with turned-up toes and two blue and pink beaded bracelets, one on each wrist. Along with some other assorted jewelry that she favored. We always preferred to dress in comfortable clothes, and we cared not a bit if we looked fashionable or not. We were just... us. And in our uniqueness, many considered us to be somewhat trend-setting. Little girls wanted to be just like the Divine Empress, and boys and girls alike looked to me for similar inspiration. I did not choose to ever present myself as a single gender, and I did not feel any need to. I was content to be as I was, and what I was... was complicated, and complex. Both physically and on the inside. We wore pleasant scented perfumes and then decided that it was time to decide what we should do for the rest of the dawning day.
Our illusion of choice was swiftly eroded... when another servant entered the chamber, attired in the white and gold gown of the palace servant class, her head shaved much like how Sapphira's was when she served the house of my father, now seemingly a lifetime ago. She bowed deeply, then rose in order to report: “Your Divine Majesties, there is word from the planet Ra'qia that Cyndijaz Megg had begun to move against her longtime rivals there... and she has requested that you two both come in person, in order to help to diffuse the situation, lest things become far more violent there than they have already.” and I was surprised to hear about the troubles there, after so long a silence. I replied: “How long has it been like this there?” and the servant explained: “The violence has been going on for years now, but it has gotten far worse since Cyndijaz Megg has decided to actually begin eliminating her rivals rather than simply outmaneuvering them politically. She has changed, it seems... and, much for the worse!” That was all the servant had to report, but this gravest news was quite disturbing for us to hear about.
We were on our way to the star port in order to book passage to the sacred planet of Ra'qia when we were stopped by the Grand Vizier, a woman I had appointed to the position myself not one year prior. She wore an elegant black gown with red trim, and her hair was done up in one of the more elaborate coiffures that were becoming fashionable around that time. She spoke with a bit of an accent, but was perfectly understandable. “Wait, my Emperor!” she shouted, and spoke somewhat concernedly: “It has not escaped my notice that you have been emotionally and mentally stressed out of late, for lack of a better turn of phrasing. Are you certain, that it is a good time to embroil yourself in the bloody conflict going on, on that planet?” and I replied pleasantly, but a bit childishly in tone: “Oh, silly one, do not be so worried! It will all be alright. We will take good care of things there, never fear!” but she was not in the least bit convinced. She had been my counselor, privy to all my innermost thoughts and aside from the Divine Empress herself... she was the only one whom I confided everything in. “Gislu... I fear that should any ill befall there, it might actually drive you mad. Your dreams of late... have been very, very concerning to me! I would not wish to lose you... I mean, to lose our Divine Emperor, of course.” and I sensed genuine concern beneath her words, along with deeper feelings for me that she was attempting to hide. I caressed the side of her face gently, lovingly, and said to her calmly, attempting to sound as adult as I could: “Ra'mona, I am not mad yet!” and she smiled sweetly, her dark-skinned face framed by the curls of her raven black hair. Then, her whole tone of voice changed to something less concerned and a whole lot more official, and she said quite imperiously: “Because I worry for you, as I do, I have decided that in your absence I will continue to run things in the way that you would have it done. If you had a mind during this adventure to abdicate the throne, I would be named sole Divine Empress in both your steads. I know you do not want to think of the possibility, but it also would be necessary in the odd event that you both should... perish.” and she struggled a bit to speak that last word. Her eyes had tears in them and her dark eye makeup was beginning to run. “Very good, Ra'mona.” I said lovingly. I could tell that Sapphira sensed that in the past something more had been between this woman and myself. She did not appear jealous though, merely thoughtful about something. I then bowed before the woman and turned to lead Sapphira towards our waiting ship in the distance. We were already well within view of the star port when Ra'mona stopped us, and it was not a long walk to where we needed to go. I could hear Ra'mona call out after us: “Take care... both of you! Your empire needs you both well!” and then Sapphira reminded me: “You know, it really is not the Emperor's place to bow before a servant, even one in so high a political position as she is.” and I admitted to my wife that I simply could not help it, I was not used to being in the position of absolute authority in which I now found myself. I liked it not.
It was a long journey to that distant planet, and even the wormhole that cut through space and time in order to deliver us there swiftly seemed to last... for an interminable amount of time and distance. “It is said that the Holy Planet exists in a seemingly starless void in the Aldebaran star system.” Sapphira had explained to me, but I knew much of that world and its' history already. “The closest neighboring world to it is Haven, where the old capital of the empire once was, before being moved to New Corinthia after a turbulent period.” Sapphira had become something of a scholar in recent months, taking a deep and abiding interest in the history of other worlds and galaxies. She was explaining all these things to me in a serious, studious tone of voice very different from her young, cherubic appearance. “Haven is also, in ancient legends, held to be... like Ra'qia... one of the birth worlds of humanity as well as the very throne of God in our universe.” I then remembered my vision of the life-force of all that is, and asked my wife humbly and fearfully: “Do you think that what I saw in my vision... was God?” and she replied: “It was and yet at the same time it was not. You witnessed a truth that has been lost to time and memory. Let it go, my love! And let us instead concentrate on discussing our intelligence reports on the situation down on the planet before we get there.” to which I agreed was a wise course of action. “Yes, let us do that!”
The Imperial governor's palace on Ra'qia was simply the largest structure upon the entire world. The entire building of it was said to have been the work of several lifetimes of whole families of workers and their conscripted slaves. We, had been working to outlaw slavery during our reign as rulers of the empire, but on Ra'qia and certain other worlds there were still outlying places where slaves were still kept, although their masters or mistresses were forbidden to treat them cruelly, such a thing being long since made a crime punishable by loss of all one's holdings and permanent exile to the most desolate of places. The palace did not have one specific architectural motif, but appeared to be a composite of a hundred or more styles and designs, all with a certain otherworldly appearance that did not look at all like the work of human hands. It was a beautiful, harmonious, but quite alien-looking structure that did not serve as a statement of function so much as a statement of art for art's sake. I liked such places very much, and this palace was one of my favorite such places in all the universe. “It is so very immense! Oh Gislu, my beloved, it would take us a good year just to see all it has to offer.” Sapphira remarked as we made our way through its' hallowed halls. I replied, as our footsteps padded upon the marble and stone tiles of the palace floors: “It is a pity we will not have the time to explore such diversions. I wonder if we will be meeting with Megg soon? It has been a long time indeed since I last saw her. I hope she is well, and has not let this conflict affect her far too much!” but Sapphira was not confident about things. “They say she is now a very changed woman, darling. Very changed indeed!” she cautioned me. The pillars looming above us looked like the fingers of giants carved in the shapes of great trees. On either side of us were interior botanical gardens of great beauty. “She has kept this place nice though!” I said, remarking on the gardens. “Even a monster can have a taste for beautiful things.” Sapphira offered, and I could not deny that. Not all tyrants were like my father had been, not all wore it upon their sleeves so openly. Since being named planetary governess, it was said that Megg had committed atrocities beyond any and all counting. This was the woman who had aided me in freeing Gehenna Primus from the vile and brutal rule of my wicked father. If the stories were to be believed, she had eclipsed even his evil!
We soon reached the Great Hall which lay at the center of the massive palace, down passageways that were lined on both sides by walls which appeared to have spine-like designs... so that, it appeared as if we were making our way through the remains of some enormous dragon-like creature. All had a black and gray coloration to it, trimmed with gold and silver in places. It was a brutal elegance! Before us at last were the great portals that opened unto the hall itself. They were so massive, like the passageways themselves, that they seemed to have been built for only giants to open. All manner of elaborate kinds of mechanisms were created to see to the doors' opening and closing. Almost a waste of technology on a planet so ancient and so hostile to the advance of technologies in general. The machines all sprung to life at our approach, and the doors opened seemingly of their own accord. The sound was surprisingly not loud, but rather a swift swishing noise followed by a dull clanging as the portals were cast open. We entered the Great Hall and crossed the rich blue carpeted floor, decorated with aquatic designs. Many of them had been redesigned to now have fire-like emblems in place of the aquatic ones, though you could clearly still see the original images beneath the rushed work. The House of Fire was the nickname that was given to the noble house that Cyndijaz Megg was the ruler and head of. Its' proper name of old was House Pyris, just as Sapphira's own noble house had been House Aeros prior to her assumption of the Imperial throne. A large round table sat in the very center of the massive, circular hall, surrounded by comfortable looking thrones all around it. The chamber was illuminated by glowing globes suspended from the ceiling, and there were fiery red tapestries hanging from the walls all around. This was where I had my reunion with the woman who had helped me to bring freedom to my home planet. She indeed, had much changed than since our last meeting. In fact, I would never have recognized her had we not been announced to her by the servants who rushed forward to greet us and usher us inside the chamber.
Megg was beautiful in face still, her hair seemingly more blood red than I had remembered it being. She no longer wore it in fancy coiffures, but now was content simply to let it cascade on down in long scarlet waves that despite the wildness had a fiery beauty to the whole of it. It was long, wild and all about her face, shoulders and back. Like a cloak she might have worn. Her attire was as resplendent as ever I saw her wearing of old... the same style of billowing red silken pantaloons she always favored, with orange trim, paired with a puffy-sleeved blouse of very transparent red material under which she wore a golden bra-like top that barely contained her enormous breasts. She was quite a great deal larger in size now... having once been shapely, with an hourglass figure. Oh, she was always a large woman to be sure! But this was something else now... she had let herself go a great deal. She was always quite big boned, and had massive hands, more like a man's than a woman's now that I noticed it. But these were now become quite chubby, and she could no longer walk without the use of a golden cane she carried, its' head in the stylized shape of a dragon's. Her massive girth had become an impediment to her health at long last. Health that had been ailing when last I saw her, but not to this extent. She also wore gilded bracelets and a magnificent ruby necklace with a bright golden chain, and upon her fingers were many rings, including the royal signet ring of her house. I could barely look her in the eyes, but struggled to do so all the same. “You are still... radiant as ever... Megg.” I said, my mouth quivering a bit as I spoke. To which she replied: “Count Gislu Ra'vann... of House Lan'ka.... you are the worst liar in the galaxy.” with a voice rather more on the deep side than I had remembered it. Her manners were as impeccable as ever, her bearing regal and her tone of voice calmly pleasant. “Welcome to Ra'qia!” she said jovially, before adding: “Welcome to Hell. My hell, anyway, for the past who knows how many years! All of my physicians tell me that I need to stop exerting myself so much these days... exerting myself!... when just look at me, Gislu, I look like I need to run a hundred marathons in order to lose all this weight I keep on gaining. I tell you... never turn to food when you get depressed! And I have been very, very depressed over the past several years.” I sighed, saddened to see her like this. She had been like a mother to me in the past. I then asked what was on my mind the most: “Megg... they say you have gone mad... I would ask you to tell me what is going on, in your own words. I promise that I will never judge you... mother.”
That was how it began, how I was called back into her service once more. She told me everything, but most of all that the hated House of Hydres, also known as the House of Water, had been harassing her without any ceasing, in every way imaginable, from the very moment in which she came to take office as planetary governor onward. “They have even turned the desert people against us, and their raids are brutal, leaving none alive in their wake. I doubt they are even human at all!” Megg explained, adding: “I have had to take... extensive... measures to stop them.” and, this was the source of the reports that Megg was conducting war atrocities on the planet. “They come into our cities and villages, they kill everyone there, even children and infants, even the very oldest of the old. Even the infirm! None are spared... and they kill our animals, burn our crops and plants, tear down our trees and scorch the soil so that nothing can grow where they strike. They do not rape or steal, though... they follow a strict code of some sort it is said... but a code that apparently allows them to commit genocide against loyal imperial citizens who deserve to know that they can sleep safely at night.” Megg was actually weeping and very loudly sobbing as she related all of that to us, continuing: “I have taken to treating them the same. If they will insist on acting like animals, then we must become beasts ourselves in order to stop them! In a perverse turn of events... the House of Water has chosen to ally with these barbarians. And so we treat them the same way... for they act as barbaric as their new allies.” and that was at the core of the matter. “I keep ordering their holdings burned to the ground or detonated wherever they are to be found. They are no longer loyal to the empire, the Houe of Water... they are only loyal to their own greed for water and other precious resources that should be shared, never hoarded. This... is now a state of open war.”
And war it was! The bloody period of unceasing conflict and upheaval that followed... was known as the Elemental Wars, named for the four noble houses who contested for absolute rule over the planet of Ra'qia during that time. The direct presence of the Divine Emperor and Empress upon the planet, did nothing whatsoever to still the open hostilities, with House Hydres and its' barbarian allies claiming that our presence and backing of House Pyris indicated imperial favoritism and thus corruption on the part of the empire itself. This anti-imperial sentiment was not shared on planets in the greater empire, but on Ra'qia there was the growing sense that we were backing the villains of this story. Over time, I watched the once-strong Cyndijaz Megg unravel before my eyes into a paranoid, aggressive wreck of a woman who was increasingly relying on ever more extreme acts of violence, in order to accomplish her goals. I spent most my time in the far pleasanter company of Megg's younger sister Caleo, and Megg's daughter Kor'nelia, as well as with Kor'nelia's teacher and mentor, Kor'ha. Kor'ha was a woman whom I came to be quite close with, even as I grew ever more distant in my feelings towards Megg herself. As time had gone on, there was also the adopted orphan girl named Phae'rathi, who had become my protege... and in whom I saw an actual successor to the Imperial throne should the need for an heir ever arise. I was not getting any younger, after all, and there was often serious talk between Sapphira and I about who would be chosen to succeed me when my end came at last. By that point in that life's time... I had been about sixty-five years old, although I looked no older than perhaps fifty years at the most. Sapphira already decided that when I died she would abdicate the throne herself and live out the rest of her days for my memory, in solitude. Thus was it decided that Phae'rathi would become the new Divine Empress when the time came for that to come to pass. This was when events began to be set into motion that would lead to the end of the Elemental Wars... with Cyndijaz Megg finally learning a very important lesson.
It was near the end of the wars, although we did not realize it at the time, when at last we had become almost wholly disillusioned with the way in which Cyndijaz Megg was choosing to lead the House of Fire in its' various operations on Ra'qia. Of old, our noble house... for my loyalties still lay with it even after all these long years of ruling as Divine Empire of the known universe... had been renowned for its' honor and marital prowess, for its' generosity and prosperity. Even in the bygone days when it had the old name of House Hor'ra'qas, way before the name was changed to Pyris once the association with the mystic element of fire took root... it was a widely liked house and family which did not have the more dark and negative associations that it carried during the Elemental Wars. Something had driven Megg mad after all, and we needed to see it ended before it could poison our whole house. On this occasion, I was standing on a large sand dune overlooking the ruins of a settlement that one belonged to the House of Water, and I felt sickened by what lay below. I was leading a contingent of elite house soldiers, and at my side as ever was my ever-faithful Phae'rathi. She was called by another name now, and she hated being called anything else in those days: Azra'ella, the Angel of Death. And it was death, which she had over the course of the wars, been forced to become. She wore long, flowing back robes on this singular occasion, over which she wore an ebony breastplate as black as a starless night. Her hair was dyed as black as she could get the color, with a single white streak down one side of it. Her eyes glared at the sight before us, her pale skin contrasted by the the black eye makeup and lipstick that she wore, in a style that gave her face a skull-like appearance. She did not favor this look normally, but she always wore it when going into battle at my side. Our enemies were often terrified by merely seeing her, with her bloodthirsty reputation preceding her wherever the wars took us. In her hands, she carried a curved sword not unlike a scimitar, but far more wicked with serrated edges designed to torment as much as to kill. Her voice was soft and refined, however, as she spoke: “Is this what we have become, father? This is not our way!” and I could not disagree with her. Fire and smoke billowed up, charred bodies lay all about the ruined settlement... and even pregnant women were not spared from being burned to death.
“Why does she hate life so much!” declared Nexinia-Din, the acting ruler of the House of Water in the name of that house's young child queen, Aquarius. We had agreed to meet with her following the unspeakable slaughter in that village which had belonged to her people, and both sides agreed readily to the parlay. The meeting was held in a neutral territory, outside in a camp set up to accommodate both sides. Naturally, Cyndijaz Megg was fully expecting us to be winning for her Nexinia-Din's surrender, or that we had some cunning plot in mind to take her head during the meeting. But such was not the case, and I found the enemy ruler to actually be quite reasonable in contrast to “Megg the Mad” as our own house's leader was beginning to be called. “She cuts infants from their mothers' wombs, burns whole families alive, tortures those she takes alive until they beg to die... and she stops her vileness only when it comes to the crimes of rape or theft. I can only assume she has some honor, but it is a twisted thing indeed, this honor of hers!” Nexinia-Din was telling us all this, an exact mirror of all that Cyndijaz Megg had once told us about the House of Water and its' native allies. The ruler of the House of Water who stood before us was a tall woman, about six feet tall in height if not somehow seeming to be even taller. She was black-skinned, and had pure white hair the color of freshly fallen snow. This was not due to age either, because she appeared to be in the prime of her life. She wore a pair of quite voluminous pantaloons, tied with drawstring at the waist and ankles, and that was paired with a very delicate-looking white blouse with long, billowing sleeves cuffed at the wrists, the cuffs decorated with pearl buttons. Over this was worn an azure-colored breastplate with adequate padding for comfort. The metal of it was trimmed with silver that shone brightly in the light of the hot desert sun. She wore no jewelry at all except a pearl necklace and a pair of pearl earrings, as well as silver nose ring... and her hair was tied back and up in a long ponytail down to her thighs. It was held in place by an ornate gold and blue hair cone. On her feet, were a pair of functional sandals, ideal to keep the desert sands from burning her soles. She was breathtakingly beautiful, like some goddess from an ancient legend, and spoke with the thick accent of the desert people from whom she was clearly descended. “You do not answer me, Count Gislu... the Demon Lord, some call you. Others name you the Emperor of Devils!” she declared, angrily, her full lips curling in a vicious-looking snarl. I voiced my true feelings about the whole affair, at long last: “I have witnessed the aftermath of a sadistic raid that I did not take part in or authorize. Cyndijaz Megg has defied the empire by doing this act, and so many others, against you and your people. I do not know, where her newfound anger comes from! She tried to explain it to me, and still I do not understand it. You have told me about her, things identical to what she claimed about you. But in all the time I have been here fighting in these wars, I never did see your people do the things that now I realize Megg has been doing all along. She is your devil, not I. If it would please you and help to bring an end to these conflicts, I would extend my hand as an ally to you and to your cause. I am doing this behind Megg's back... she does not even know that I am here doing this. She believes I have come to either demand your surrender or take your head. I intend to do neither of those things! I have decided that your people are actually innocent and in the right, and I intend to back you from behind the scenes, sabotaging Megg's designs for the conquest of the other houses if possible.” Nexinia-Din took a bit to think all of this over. We each had a drink of water from pitchers that sat upon the table before us. It was a very hot day indeed! And the shade provided by the large tent we sat in, only shaded it so much. We both sat at opposite ends of the low table, upon piles of cushions. Phae'rathi knelt by my side, her hand caressing my arm, her eyes obsessively and adoringly lost in staring up at my face as I spoke with my opposite from the House of Water. “Is she your lover, then?” Nexinia-Din asked, genuinely curious and pointing to Phae'rathi. I explained that she was my daughter, to which the desert woman laughed and said: “Oh please... do forgive me, I mean no insult to either of you... but you are naive, Gislu! That girl... she is sixteen years old, yes?... she looks at you like a woman in love. Not as a daughter does to a father. If there is blood between you, I do not think she cares. She wants you all to herself!” Silence.
Everything was silent in the tent. I then allowed myself to laugh out loud, while Nexinia-Din laughed in the same boisterous way. “Perhaps I am too old to be so very naive!” I exclaimed. Phae'rathi glared at Nexinia-Din with hate evident in her eyes. “You mock me, desert woman!” the young girl said in a tone filled with menace. “That is unwise.” Then, Phae'rathi kissed me full on the lips with a savage passion before walking out of the tent, saying in a monotone: “I think I will wait outside where I will say anything that might ruin these... pleasant... negotiations.” Nexinia-Din exclaimed with a kind of mock excitement: “You see! I told you she is in love with you. A daughter, really? Not likely.” and we continued to talk until nightfall. Around midnight, Nexinia-Din and I had come to an agreement. She proclaimed to me: “Alright, Count Gislu... bring your most trusted people and we shall meet over at the Uqtaar basin. There is an old fortress there that belongs to my family... there, we will combine only our most elite forces and march upon the Imperial palace to overthrow Cyndijaz Megg once and for all. As Divine Emperor, you have the right to declare any house to be a rogue house, and in so doing you will have the legal right to disband it or reform it under a new leader. Once that is done, you can seize all its' holdings and make yourself the new head of it if you like, bringing it back under... new management... so to speak.” I agreed, but before I could stand up she grabbed my arm and said: “Oh no! Not so fast. You say that you are not sleeping with your own daughter, and I want to believe you. I have seen you looking at me and practically salivating as we talked for so long. I tell you what! I will believe you in regard to your daughter, if you spend the night making love with me. I need to mate with someone, and it has been a long time... they say that you are a kind of hermaphrodite that can still pleasure a woman. Good! I have a fancy for both men and women, and in you I can experience both. Have we a deal?” and I said to her, my breath quickening with excitement: “Deal!” and we made love that night with such an intensity that I had only known previously with Sapphira. I was not betraying her, I decided. This... was all for the sake of an alliance only. Outside, I could not have known at the time that Phae'rathi had been watching us, her anger and rage seething with jealousy. I hoped this would not serve to scar her inside.
Clad in my own black robes and black armor, I led my forces to the fortress that Nexinia-Din had told us of. At my side was Sapphira herself, Phae'rathi, Caleo, and Kor'ha. All attired for battle, and all very eager for the chance to end this increasingly savage conflict. I looked on over at that noble, red-headed woman who was Megg's younger sister, and I said to her happily: “Remember, this will not be the end of your noble house, but rather it will mean the restoration of its' tarnished honor!” and Kor'ha... ever the tomboy, with her short hair and penchant for wearing strictly male attire when going into battle... said very happily in her tenor voice: “I know already... I helped plan out the details beforehand, along with several of Nexinia-Din's spies. Gislu, please... let us just get this over with! No speeches today.” And that settled the matter... we marched onward, across the desolation that lay all throughout the arid basin before us. In the very distance, we could see the fortress... half-hidden as it was amid the rocky cliffs on the far end of the long-unused road that we were following to get there. It was the hottest day of the year so far, and had we not packed plenty of water and supplies, it would have become a death march for certain. Soon, we began to notice strange things... overturned vehicles on the sides of the road, and burn marks blasted into the ground hard enough to shatter the rocks all around them. Piles of soot and ash as high as a person is tall lay heaped about in various places, and sticking out from them were charred, skeletal human remains. “Was this Nexinia-Din's doing?” asked Caleo fearfully, and I honestly stated: “No! This is the work of your sister... I am certain of it.” Our soldiers were all vast in number, but there was a certain unease that I could feel among their numbers. None of us liked this! We kept on though, thinking how grateful we would be to reach the safety that awaited us at the end of our trek. However, the closer we got to the fortress, the worse things became! We saw vultures and other scavenger birds circling the place, and black pillars of smoke erupted from out the very middle of it.
There was no one left alive at the fortress. Blasted rubble lay strewn all about... and everything within the gates was charred to cinders. The intact state of the outer walls belied the horror that lay just inside. Bodies were impaled upon metal poles and had been set alight, some were even still burning. The smell was atrocious, as had been the smell of the burned flesh at every other site of Cyndijaz Megg's attacks. The perpetrators had long-since fled the scene, but what remained was beyond terrible. I had no way of recognizing any of the victims... until we found the remains of Nexinia-Din, whose white hair was still visible, where it had not been burned away entirely from her burned remains. I wept for her, as did all who were present at my side except for Phae'rathi, who began to laugh and giggle insanely before she herself began to cry, collapsing unto the ground and clutching the sides of her head as if in sharp pain. This was too far, even for someone we knew to be lost... Cyndijaz Megg would have to pay dearly for this deed! “Help me bury her!” I commanded several of the soldiers, tears filling my eyes and my own words stumbling a bit as I spoke: “She did not deserve this. She was a good woman, an honorable and dedicated ruler to her people. I want some of her genetic material preserved, so that we can clone her as soon as we get back to our base. Then... we need to regroup and think about what to do next.” A bit of her skin and hair were taken... the hair was still capable of yielding undamaged samples that would aid in the cloning process, while the skin where it was not charred would do likewise. She was buried in a mass grave along with all those who had perished with her in that place. The fortress was now a tomb, and a symbol of freedom no longer. “We must send word to Aquarius somehow, of what transpired... if anyone can still somehow aid our cause to put a stop to Megg the Mad, it is surely the child queen.” I told this to Kor'ha and several of her trusted fellow spy units. Those brave men and women could travel in places where no one else would ever look, and they could reach the homelands of the House of Water faster than if I had sent a small army there. They knew the way... everyone did. The seats of our enemies had become common knowledge to us in the early days of the wars, but now they were to be our allies.
Weeks passed, and we had gathered at our hidden refuge far away from the lands ruled over by the now unquestionably evil Cyndijaz Megg. There was no one left who followed her willingly... all her most immediate family members defected to our cause and every day she must have been screaming about our treachery and betrayal of her. Though in truth, she had betrayed all of us! She was planning a direct offensive against the homeland of the House of Water in a cruel plan to wipe them out once and for all time... and as of yet, we had not gotten word back from those we sent to gain the aid of Aquarius and also to warn her of the rampage that Megg was hell-bent upon. It was hard waiting like that, but we began to hold out for hope that something surely would turn the tide in our favor. The castle where we met was perched high atop the cliffs of a region that did not even have a name, not far from an ancient abandoned city from the times before the empire even had an interest in this world. It was unable to be approached except by way of a narrow mountain pass and even more treacherous group of stairs that led up all the way to the castle's gate. The towers were mounted with anti-aircraft turrets, and the walls were reinforced by a force field generator that only was turned off to allow us to enter of exit the place. It was beyond safe, beyond secure! We would not be staying there long, but for the time being it was our home. The desert people began to rally to our cause in great multitudes, and soon we had an army more vast than anything the House of Fire could muster. For at our disposal were the elite soldiers who had defected from Megg to our cause, along with the innumerable people whom Megg had in her hate and spite been persecuting... along with my own hand-picked elite warriors. It was a force the size of which no one in Ra'qia's history had seen up until that point. But still we could not act until we heard from the child queen of the House of Water! Her pledge of assistance would ensure our victory. I stood in the highest tower with Sapphira at my side, her arm lovingly wrapped around my waist. We watched the men training below, and smiled. It was almost time to restore the rule of Imperial Law to this planet.
It had been some time since we took the throne of the galactic empire and made it our own. Or had we merely remade a thing that already was ripe for change? It was difficult for me sometimes to try to adjust to my new role... I had not ever been so laden with responsibilities before, but also I had never known so many comforts. Even so, on certain nights I could not sleep easy... and the nightmares in all such hours would begin to stir, manifesting in forms I had not anticipated. On this night, it did seem as if the whole world all around me was shifting out of sync, and the ceiling of the palace bedchambers was vanishing, replaced by a vision of billions of stars beyond counting, shining with light and color far beyond what is normally seen. It was not a natural vision! The walls too seemed to cease to exist, and I was surrounded by infinite vastness on all sides. The elegant red and gold draperies were replaced by wraith-like forms that drifted into view only to vanish when spotted directly. Was was I becoming, I often wondered, that I had these experiences? But there was no name for them, nor for me it seemed. I had the great darkness inside of me, which was also filled with so much light. The only thing that ever could console me was my wife, my Divine Empress who was always there at my side. She lay next to me even now, and I could feel the warmth of her body. But my spirit also felt the coldness of the vast void that I was witnessing before my slumbering eyes. Was I even asleep any longer? And I felt the chill of space, its' frigid cold, against the skin of my astral form. It was summer, and such cold was an impossibility! Then, all of a sudden I beheld an explosion of light and hear the sound of a multitude, all speaking, thinking, laughing, crying, living and dying all at once. It was the very life-force of all that is, and I was frightened by it! I felt like a child again, and began to run. Could I run, in the absence of any gravity? But by thinking I wished to not be there, I was there no more, and I awoke sweating profusely.
Sapphira was awakened by the scream I let out upon my own awakening. Her curly golden hair, all filled with streaks and highlights of brilliant red, seemed to glisten in the morning sunlight that was filtering into the room, its' gentle shafts of radiance seeming to caress all that the light touched. Her big blue eyes looked into my own eyes, and I knew she could sense my distress. “You saw it again, didn't you?” she asked without it really even being a question. I replied: “Yes... I saw the source of all that is, and it filled me with such a tremendous fear, because this is not any sight, not any thing that mortals should know or experience. It was... too much, even for me to bear.” She leaned over, and kissed my face gently and softly. She confessed: “I know, for I have seen its' direct opposite in my own dreams. Visions, to be honest, for these are not dreams as people label such things.” We were both something not quite human, and perhaps we never truly were human fully to begin with. No one other than we two, could comprehend our understand such things! I had yet to encounter another like unto us, even in all my time as Divine Emperor. Sapphira began to sing the words of an old song: “I am the child who dwells within your heart, the angel whose wings caress your soul... let my light disperse the dark, and let my darkness protect you from the terrible light. Let me do my part, let my words deeply console! Let my light disperse the dark, and let my darkness protect you from the terrible light.” and that was how we started that morning off. Along with other, far more pleasant things. It would be a very good day!
The empire had become gentler under our guidance, its' peoples happier and more content than ever they had been under the older, stricter regimes of the past. Yet, for every contented soul there was that one person who felt anger in their heart, or sorrow in their soul... whom all comforts could not hope to reach. I too felt ill at ease sometimes, but not like that... never like that. For me, it was a different thing. I feared that everything was too good to be true, that this peaceful time was an illusion doomed to be dispersed by some crueler reality that lay beneath the surface. I wanted nothing more, than for this far more beautiful era to last and endure forever. Or at least until my dying day, whenever that may come.
There was so much joy in my life right now! From our soft bed, I could see the gardens outside and I could smell the lovely scents of all the flowers there. I was elated by that, invigorated by it! Even as the beauty of my beloved Sapphira likewise made me feel uniquely alive. Whole domes now contained the same sort of beauty as existed in our gardens... nature was very quickly reclaiming whole stretches of the planet of New Corinthia, under the watchful guidance of the planet's chief environmental scientists and scholars. It was no longer as vast of an urban sprawl as it once had been, and there was the talk that within our lifetimes it was possible that some of the protective domes could be removed to allow the planet's rapidly healing atmosphere... now becoming toxin-free... to finally be experienced. No more need for artificially created atmospheres! That was unthinkable when we first came to power, but now things were changing fast in a time in which there was no war. “Soon, you know, there will be rain to be felt, again! Rather than this perpetual summertime we know now.” Sapphira mentioned as we made ready to get up out of bed and get on with the day. “Rain! Clean rain...” I muttered, thinking back on how some of the rain on my home planet of Gehenna Primus was actually said to be polluted. On the days when the toxic rains fell, we had to remain indoors or wear protective coverings in order so as not to be sickened by the touch of it. We would have to reclaim that planet too, one day... but such was a slow, slow process and at least in my own lifetime I would not see such a project through to its' final phases. I felt young still, but I knew that I was not. Even as Sapphira never aged a single day, due to her unique bodily mutations that allowed her remain young in body seemingly forever. A forbidden and forgotten technology, which was still apparently practiced by some in secret. But in my life, Sapphira was the only one I knew of who had undergone such a procedure... and was not driven mad over time.
The servants came to make the bed as we dressed ourselves for the day. I wore a red jumpsuit that was sleeveless, with billowing pant legs tied with drawstring at the waist and ankles, and about my waist a golden sash belt tied in a neat bow. I wore gold slipper-like shoes, and some favorite pieces of jewelry that I was fond of. Sapphira wore a pair of pink bloomer-like shorts made of a shimmery type of material, and that was paired with a shimmery blue peasant-style blouse with long, puffy sleeves. She wore pink slipper-like shoes with turned-up toes and two blue and pink beaded bracelets, one on each wrist. Along with some other assorted jewelry that she favored. We always preferred to dress in comfortable clothes, and we cared not a bit if we looked fashionable or not. We were just... us. And in our uniqueness, many considered us to be somewhat trend-setting. Little girls wanted to be just like the Divine Empress, and boys and girls alike looked to me for similar inspiration. I did not choose to ever present myself as a single gender, and I did not feel any need to. I was content to be as I was, and what I was... was complicated, and complex. Both physically and on the inside. We wore pleasant scented perfumes and then decided that it was time to decide what we should do for the rest of the dawning day.
Our illusion of choice was swiftly eroded... when another servant entered the chamber, attired in the white and gold gown of the palace servant class, her head shaved much like how Sapphira's was when she served the house of my father, now seemingly a lifetime ago. She bowed deeply, then rose in order to report: “Your Divine Majesties, there is word from the planet Ra'qia that Cyndijaz Megg had begun to move against her longtime rivals there... and she has requested that you two both come in person, in order to help to diffuse the situation, lest things become far more violent there than they have already.” and I was surprised to hear about the troubles there, after so long a silence. I replied: “How long has it been like this there?” and the servant explained: “The violence has been going on for years now, but it has gotten far worse since Cyndijaz Megg has decided to actually begin eliminating her rivals rather than simply outmaneuvering them politically. She has changed, it seems... and, much for the worse!” That was all the servant had to report, but this gravest news was quite disturbing for us to hear about.
We were on our way to the star port in order to book passage to the sacred planet of Ra'qia when we were stopped by the Grand Vizier, a woman I had appointed to the position myself not one year prior. She wore an elegant black gown with red trim, and her hair was done up in one of the more elaborate coiffures that were becoming fashionable around that time. She spoke with a bit of an accent, but was perfectly understandable. “Wait, my Emperor!” she shouted, and spoke somewhat concernedly: “It has not escaped my notice that you have been emotionally and mentally stressed out of late, for lack of a better turn of phrasing. Are you certain, that it is a good time to embroil yourself in the bloody conflict going on, on that planet?” and I replied pleasantly, but a bit childishly in tone: “Oh, silly one, do not be so worried! It will all be alright. We will take good care of things there, never fear!” but she was not in the least bit convinced. She had been my counselor, privy to all my innermost thoughts and aside from the Divine Empress herself... she was the only one whom I confided everything in. “Gislu... I fear that should any ill befall there, it might actually drive you mad. Your dreams of late... have been very, very concerning to me! I would not wish to lose you... I mean, to lose our Divine Emperor, of course.” and I sensed genuine concern beneath her words, along with deeper feelings for me that she was attempting to hide. I caressed the side of her face gently, lovingly, and said to her calmly, attempting to sound as adult as I could: “Ra'mona, I am not mad yet!” and she smiled sweetly, her dark-skinned face framed by the curls of her raven black hair. Then, her whole tone of voice changed to something less concerned and a whole lot more official, and she said quite imperiously: “Because I worry for you, as I do, I have decided that in your absence I will continue to run things in the way that you would have it done. If you had a mind during this adventure to abdicate the throne, I would be named sole Divine Empress in both your steads. I know you do not want to think of the possibility, but it also would be necessary in the odd event that you both should... perish.” and she struggled a bit to speak that last word. Her eyes had tears in them and her dark eye makeup was beginning to run. “Very good, Ra'mona.” I said lovingly. I could tell that Sapphira sensed that in the past something more had been between this woman and myself. She did not appear jealous though, merely thoughtful about something. I then bowed before the woman and turned to lead Sapphira towards our waiting ship in the distance. We were already well within view of the star port when Ra'mona stopped us, and it was not a long walk to where we needed to go. I could hear Ra'mona call out after us: “Take care... both of you! Your empire needs you both well!” and then Sapphira reminded me: “You know, it really is not the Emperor's place to bow before a servant, even one in so high a political position as she is.” and I admitted to my wife that I simply could not help it, I was not used to being in the position of absolute authority in which I now found myself. I liked it not.
It was a long journey to that distant planet, and even the wormhole that cut through space and time in order to deliver us there swiftly seemed to last... for an interminable amount of time and distance. “It is said that the Holy Planet exists in a seemingly starless void in the Aldebaran star system.” Sapphira had explained to me, but I knew much of that world and its' history already. “The closest neighboring world to it is Haven, where the old capital of the empire once was, before being moved to New Corinthia after a turbulent period.” Sapphira had become something of a scholar in recent months, taking a deep and abiding interest in the history of other worlds and galaxies. She was explaining all these things to me in a serious, studious tone of voice very different from her young, cherubic appearance. “Haven is also, in ancient legends, held to be... like Ra'qia... one of the birth worlds of humanity as well as the very throne of God in our universe.” I then remembered my vision of the life-force of all that is, and asked my wife humbly and fearfully: “Do you think that what I saw in my vision... was God?” and she replied: “It was and yet at the same time it was not. You witnessed a truth that has been lost to time and memory. Let it go, my love! And let us instead concentrate on discussing our intelligence reports on the situation down on the planet before we get there.” to which I agreed was a wise course of action. “Yes, let us do that!”
The Imperial governor's palace on Ra'qia was simply the largest structure upon the entire world. The entire building of it was said to have been the work of several lifetimes of whole families of workers and their conscripted slaves. We, had been working to outlaw slavery during our reign as rulers of the empire, but on Ra'qia and certain other worlds there were still outlying places where slaves were still kept, although their masters or mistresses were forbidden to treat them cruelly, such a thing being long since made a crime punishable by loss of all one's holdings and permanent exile to the most desolate of places. The palace did not have one specific architectural motif, but appeared to be a composite of a hundred or more styles and designs, all with a certain otherworldly appearance that did not look at all like the work of human hands. It was a beautiful, harmonious, but quite alien-looking structure that did not serve as a statement of function so much as a statement of art for art's sake. I liked such places very much, and this palace was one of my favorite such places in all the universe. “It is so very immense! Oh Gislu, my beloved, it would take us a good year just to see all it has to offer.” Sapphira remarked as we made our way through its' hallowed halls. I replied, as our footsteps padded upon the marble and stone tiles of the palace floors: “It is a pity we will not have the time to explore such diversions. I wonder if we will be meeting with Megg soon? It has been a long time indeed since I last saw her. I hope she is well, and has not let this conflict affect her far too much!” but Sapphira was not confident about things. “They say she is now a very changed woman, darling. Very changed indeed!” she cautioned me. The pillars looming above us looked like the fingers of giants carved in the shapes of great trees. On either side of us were interior botanical gardens of great beauty. “She has kept this place nice though!” I said, remarking on the gardens. “Even a monster can have a taste for beautiful things.” Sapphira offered, and I could not deny that. Not all tyrants were like my father had been, not all wore it upon their sleeves so openly. Since being named planetary governess, it was said that Megg had committed atrocities beyond any and all counting. This was the woman who had aided me in freeing Gehenna Primus from the vile and brutal rule of my wicked father. If the stories were to be believed, she had eclipsed even his evil!
We soon reached the Great Hall which lay at the center of the massive palace, down passageways that were lined on both sides by walls which appeared to have spine-like designs... so that, it appeared as if we were making our way through the remains of some enormous dragon-like creature. All had a black and gray coloration to it, trimmed with gold and silver in places. It was a brutal elegance! Before us at last were the great portals that opened unto the hall itself. They were so massive, like the passageways themselves, that they seemed to have been built for only giants to open. All manner of elaborate kinds of mechanisms were created to see to the doors' opening and closing. Almost a waste of technology on a planet so ancient and so hostile to the advance of technologies in general. The machines all sprung to life at our approach, and the doors opened seemingly of their own accord. The sound was surprisingly not loud, but rather a swift swishing noise followed by a dull clanging as the portals were cast open. We entered the Great Hall and crossed the rich blue carpeted floor, decorated with aquatic designs. Many of them had been redesigned to now have fire-like emblems in place of the aquatic ones, though you could clearly still see the original images beneath the rushed work. The House of Fire was the nickname that was given to the noble house that Cyndijaz Megg was the ruler and head of. Its' proper name of old was House Pyris, just as Sapphira's own noble house had been House Aeros prior to her assumption of the Imperial throne. A large round table sat in the very center of the massive, circular hall, surrounded by comfortable looking thrones all around it. The chamber was illuminated by glowing globes suspended from the ceiling, and there were fiery red tapestries hanging from the walls all around. This was where I had my reunion with the woman who had helped me to bring freedom to my home planet. She indeed, had much changed than since our last meeting. In fact, I would never have recognized her had we not been announced to her by the servants who rushed forward to greet us and usher us inside the chamber.
Megg was beautiful in face still, her hair seemingly more blood red than I had remembered it being. She no longer wore it in fancy coiffures, but now was content simply to let it cascade on down in long scarlet waves that despite the wildness had a fiery beauty to the whole of it. It was long, wild and all about her face, shoulders and back. Like a cloak she might have worn. Her attire was as resplendent as ever I saw her wearing of old... the same style of billowing red silken pantaloons she always favored, with orange trim, paired with a puffy-sleeved blouse of very transparent red material under which she wore a golden bra-like top that barely contained her enormous breasts. She was quite a great deal larger in size now... having once been shapely, with an hourglass figure. Oh, she was always a large woman to be sure! But this was something else now... she had let herself go a great deal. She was always quite big boned, and had massive hands, more like a man's than a woman's now that I noticed it. But these were now become quite chubby, and she could no longer walk without the use of a golden cane she carried, its' head in the stylized shape of a dragon's. Her massive girth had become an impediment to her health at long last. Health that had been ailing when last I saw her, but not to this extent. She also wore gilded bracelets and a magnificent ruby necklace with a bright golden chain, and upon her fingers were many rings, including the royal signet ring of her house. I could barely look her in the eyes, but struggled to do so all the same. “You are still... radiant as ever... Megg.” I said, my mouth quivering a bit as I spoke. To which she replied: “Count Gislu Ra'vann... of House Lan'ka.... you are the worst liar in the galaxy.” with a voice rather more on the deep side than I had remembered it. Her manners were as impeccable as ever, her bearing regal and her tone of voice calmly pleasant. “Welcome to Ra'qia!” she said jovially, before adding: “Welcome to Hell. My hell, anyway, for the past who knows how many years! All of my physicians tell me that I need to stop exerting myself so much these days... exerting myself!... when just look at me, Gislu, I look like I need to run a hundred marathons in order to lose all this weight I keep on gaining. I tell you... never turn to food when you get depressed! And I have been very, very depressed over the past several years.” I sighed, saddened to see her like this. She had been like a mother to me in the past. I then asked what was on my mind the most: “Megg... they say you have gone mad... I would ask you to tell me what is going on, in your own words. I promise that I will never judge you... mother.”
That was how it began, how I was called back into her service once more. She told me everything, but most of all that the hated House of Hydres, also known as the House of Water, had been harassing her without any ceasing, in every way imaginable, from the very moment in which she came to take office as planetary governor onward. “They have even turned the desert people against us, and their raids are brutal, leaving none alive in their wake. I doubt they are even human at all!” Megg explained, adding: “I have had to take... extensive... measures to stop them.” and, this was the source of the reports that Megg was conducting war atrocities on the planet. “They come into our cities and villages, they kill everyone there, even children and infants, even the very oldest of the old. Even the infirm! None are spared... and they kill our animals, burn our crops and plants, tear down our trees and scorch the soil so that nothing can grow where they strike. They do not rape or steal, though... they follow a strict code of some sort it is said... but a code that apparently allows them to commit genocide against loyal imperial citizens who deserve to know that they can sleep safely at night.” Megg was actually weeping and very loudly sobbing as she related all of that to us, continuing: “I have taken to treating them the same. If they will insist on acting like animals, then we must become beasts ourselves in order to stop them! In a perverse turn of events... the House of Water has chosen to ally with these barbarians. And so we treat them the same way... for they act as barbaric as their new allies.” and that was at the core of the matter. “I keep ordering their holdings burned to the ground or detonated wherever they are to be found. They are no longer loyal to the empire, the Houe of Water... they are only loyal to their own greed for water and other precious resources that should be shared, never hoarded. This... is now a state of open war.”
And war it was! The bloody period of unceasing conflict and upheaval that followed... was known as the Elemental Wars, named for the four noble houses who contested for absolute rule over the planet of Ra'qia during that time. The direct presence of the Divine Emperor and Empress upon the planet, did nothing whatsoever to still the open hostilities, with House Hydres and its' barbarian allies claiming that our presence and backing of House Pyris indicated imperial favoritism and thus corruption on the part of the empire itself. This anti-imperial sentiment was not shared on planets in the greater empire, but on Ra'qia there was the growing sense that we were backing the villains of this story. Over time, I watched the once-strong Cyndijaz Megg unravel before my eyes into a paranoid, aggressive wreck of a woman who was increasingly relying on ever more extreme acts of violence, in order to accomplish her goals. I spent most my time in the far pleasanter company of Megg's younger sister Caleo, and Megg's daughter Kor'nelia, as well as with Kor'nelia's teacher and mentor, Kor'ha. Kor'ha was a woman whom I came to be quite close with, even as I grew ever more distant in my feelings towards Megg herself. As time had gone on, there was also the adopted orphan girl named Phae'rathi, who had become my protege... and in whom I saw an actual successor to the Imperial throne should the need for an heir ever arise. I was not getting any younger, after all, and there was often serious talk between Sapphira and I about who would be chosen to succeed me when my end came at last. By that point in that life's time... I had been about sixty-five years old, although I looked no older than perhaps fifty years at the most. Sapphira already decided that when I died she would abdicate the throne herself and live out the rest of her days for my memory, in solitude. Thus was it decided that Phae'rathi would become the new Divine Empress when the time came for that to come to pass. This was when events began to be set into motion that would lead to the end of the Elemental Wars... with Cyndijaz Megg finally learning a very important lesson.
It was near the end of the wars, although we did not realize it at the time, when at last we had become almost wholly disillusioned with the way in which Cyndijaz Megg was choosing to lead the House of Fire in its' various operations on Ra'qia. Of old, our noble house... for my loyalties still lay with it even after all these long years of ruling as Divine Empire of the known universe... had been renowned for its' honor and marital prowess, for its' generosity and prosperity. Even in the bygone days when it had the old name of House Hor'ra'qas, way before the name was changed to Pyris once the association with the mystic element of fire took root... it was a widely liked house and family which did not have the more dark and negative associations that it carried during the Elemental Wars. Something had driven Megg mad after all, and we needed to see it ended before it could poison our whole house. On this occasion, I was standing on a large sand dune overlooking the ruins of a settlement that one belonged to the House of Water, and I felt sickened by what lay below. I was leading a contingent of elite house soldiers, and at my side as ever was my ever-faithful Phae'rathi. She was called by another name now, and she hated being called anything else in those days: Azra'ella, the Angel of Death. And it was death, which she had over the course of the wars, been forced to become. She wore long, flowing back robes on this singular occasion, over which she wore an ebony breastplate as black as a starless night. Her hair was dyed as black as she could get the color, with a single white streak down one side of it. Her eyes glared at the sight before us, her pale skin contrasted by the the black eye makeup and lipstick that she wore, in a style that gave her face a skull-like appearance. She did not favor this look normally, but she always wore it when going into battle at my side. Our enemies were often terrified by merely seeing her, with her bloodthirsty reputation preceding her wherever the wars took us. In her hands, she carried a curved sword not unlike a scimitar, but far more wicked with serrated edges designed to torment as much as to kill. Her voice was soft and refined, however, as she spoke: “Is this what we have become, father? This is not our way!” and I could not disagree with her. Fire and smoke billowed up, charred bodies lay all about the ruined settlement... and even pregnant women were not spared from being burned to death.
“Why does she hate life so much!” declared Nexinia-Din, the acting ruler of the House of Water in the name of that house's young child queen, Aquarius. We had agreed to meet with her following the unspeakable slaughter in that village which had belonged to her people, and both sides agreed readily to the parlay. The meeting was held in a neutral territory, outside in a camp set up to accommodate both sides. Naturally, Cyndijaz Megg was fully expecting us to be winning for her Nexinia-Din's surrender, or that we had some cunning plot in mind to take her head during the meeting. But such was not the case, and I found the enemy ruler to actually be quite reasonable in contrast to “Megg the Mad” as our own house's leader was beginning to be called. “She cuts infants from their mothers' wombs, burns whole families alive, tortures those she takes alive until they beg to die... and she stops her vileness only when it comes to the crimes of rape or theft. I can only assume she has some honor, but it is a twisted thing indeed, this honor of hers!” Nexinia-Din was telling us all this, an exact mirror of all that Cyndijaz Megg had once told us about the House of Water and its' native allies. The ruler of the House of Water who stood before us was a tall woman, about six feet tall in height if not somehow seeming to be even taller. She was black-skinned, and had pure white hair the color of freshly fallen snow. This was not due to age either, because she appeared to be in the prime of her life. She wore a pair of quite voluminous pantaloons, tied with drawstring at the waist and ankles, and that was paired with a very delicate-looking white blouse with long, billowing sleeves cuffed at the wrists, the cuffs decorated with pearl buttons. Over this was worn an azure-colored breastplate with adequate padding for comfort. The metal of it was trimmed with silver that shone brightly in the light of the hot desert sun. She wore no jewelry at all except a pearl necklace and a pair of pearl earrings, as well as silver nose ring... and her hair was tied back and up in a long ponytail down to her thighs. It was held in place by an ornate gold and blue hair cone. On her feet, were a pair of functional sandals, ideal to keep the desert sands from burning her soles. She was breathtakingly beautiful, like some goddess from an ancient legend, and spoke with the thick accent of the desert people from whom she was clearly descended. “You do not answer me, Count Gislu... the Demon Lord, some call you. Others name you the Emperor of Devils!” she declared, angrily, her full lips curling in a vicious-looking snarl. I voiced my true feelings about the whole affair, at long last: “I have witnessed the aftermath of a sadistic raid that I did not take part in or authorize. Cyndijaz Megg has defied the empire by doing this act, and so many others, against you and your people. I do not know, where her newfound anger comes from! She tried to explain it to me, and still I do not understand it. You have told me about her, things identical to what she claimed about you. But in all the time I have been here fighting in these wars, I never did see your people do the things that now I realize Megg has been doing all along. She is your devil, not I. If it would please you and help to bring an end to these conflicts, I would extend my hand as an ally to you and to your cause. I am doing this behind Megg's back... she does not even know that I am here doing this. She believes I have come to either demand your surrender or take your head. I intend to do neither of those things! I have decided that your people are actually innocent and in the right, and I intend to back you from behind the scenes, sabotaging Megg's designs for the conquest of the other houses if possible.” Nexinia-Din took a bit to think all of this over. We each had a drink of water from pitchers that sat upon the table before us. It was a very hot day indeed! And the shade provided by the large tent we sat in, only shaded it so much. We both sat at opposite ends of the low table, upon piles of cushions. Phae'rathi knelt by my side, her hand caressing my arm, her eyes obsessively and adoringly lost in staring up at my face as I spoke with my opposite from the House of Water. “Is she your lover, then?” Nexinia-Din asked, genuinely curious and pointing to Phae'rathi. I explained that she was my daughter, to which the desert woman laughed and said: “Oh please... do forgive me, I mean no insult to either of you... but you are naive, Gislu! That girl... she is sixteen years old, yes?... she looks at you like a woman in love. Not as a daughter does to a father. If there is blood between you, I do not think she cares. She wants you all to herself!” Silence.
Everything was silent in the tent. I then allowed myself to laugh out loud, while Nexinia-Din laughed in the same boisterous way. “Perhaps I am too old to be so very naive!” I exclaimed. Phae'rathi glared at Nexinia-Din with hate evident in her eyes. “You mock me, desert woman!” the young girl said in a tone filled with menace. “That is unwise.” Then, Phae'rathi kissed me full on the lips with a savage passion before walking out of the tent, saying in a monotone: “I think I will wait outside where I will say anything that might ruin these... pleasant... negotiations.” Nexinia-Din exclaimed with a kind of mock excitement: “You see! I told you she is in love with you. A daughter, really? Not likely.” and we continued to talk until nightfall. Around midnight, Nexinia-Din and I had come to an agreement. She proclaimed to me: “Alright, Count Gislu... bring your most trusted people and we shall meet over at the Uqtaar basin. There is an old fortress there that belongs to my family... there, we will combine only our most elite forces and march upon the Imperial palace to overthrow Cyndijaz Megg once and for all. As Divine Emperor, you have the right to declare any house to be a rogue house, and in so doing you will have the legal right to disband it or reform it under a new leader. Once that is done, you can seize all its' holdings and make yourself the new head of it if you like, bringing it back under... new management... so to speak.” I agreed, but before I could stand up she grabbed my arm and said: “Oh no! Not so fast. You say that you are not sleeping with your own daughter, and I want to believe you. I have seen you looking at me and practically salivating as we talked for so long. I tell you what! I will believe you in regard to your daughter, if you spend the night making love with me. I need to mate with someone, and it has been a long time... they say that you are a kind of hermaphrodite that can still pleasure a woman. Good! I have a fancy for both men and women, and in you I can experience both. Have we a deal?” and I said to her, my breath quickening with excitement: “Deal!” and we made love that night with such an intensity that I had only known previously with Sapphira. I was not betraying her, I decided. This... was all for the sake of an alliance only. Outside, I could not have known at the time that Phae'rathi had been watching us, her anger and rage seething with jealousy. I hoped this would not serve to scar her inside.
Clad in my own black robes and black armor, I led my forces to the fortress that Nexinia-Din had told us of. At my side was Sapphira herself, Phae'rathi, Caleo, and Kor'ha. All attired for battle, and all very eager for the chance to end this increasingly savage conflict. I looked on over at that noble, red-headed woman who was Megg's younger sister, and I said to her happily: “Remember, this will not be the end of your noble house, but rather it will mean the restoration of its' tarnished honor!” and Kor'ha... ever the tomboy, with her short hair and penchant for wearing strictly male attire when going into battle... said very happily in her tenor voice: “I know already... I helped plan out the details beforehand, along with several of Nexinia-Din's spies. Gislu, please... let us just get this over with! No speeches today.” And that settled the matter... we marched onward, across the desolation that lay all throughout the arid basin before us. In the very distance, we could see the fortress... half-hidden as it was amid the rocky cliffs on the far end of the long-unused road that we were following to get there. It was the hottest day of the year so far, and had we not packed plenty of water and supplies, it would have become a death march for certain. Soon, we began to notice strange things... overturned vehicles on the sides of the road, and burn marks blasted into the ground hard enough to shatter the rocks all around them. Piles of soot and ash as high as a person is tall lay heaped about in various places, and sticking out from them were charred, skeletal human remains. “Was this Nexinia-Din's doing?” asked Caleo fearfully, and I honestly stated: “No! This is the work of your sister... I am certain of it.” Our soldiers were all vast in number, but there was a certain unease that I could feel among their numbers. None of us liked this! We kept on though, thinking how grateful we would be to reach the safety that awaited us at the end of our trek. However, the closer we got to the fortress, the worse things became! We saw vultures and other scavenger birds circling the place, and black pillars of smoke erupted from out the very middle of it.
There was no one left alive at the fortress. Blasted rubble lay strewn all about... and everything within the gates was charred to cinders. The intact state of the outer walls belied the horror that lay just inside. Bodies were impaled upon metal poles and had been set alight, some were even still burning. The smell was atrocious, as had been the smell of the burned flesh at every other site of Cyndijaz Megg's attacks. The perpetrators had long-since fled the scene, but what remained was beyond terrible. I had no way of recognizing any of the victims... until we found the remains of Nexinia-Din, whose white hair was still visible, where it had not been burned away entirely from her burned remains. I wept for her, as did all who were present at my side except for Phae'rathi, who began to laugh and giggle insanely before she herself began to cry, collapsing unto the ground and clutching the sides of her head as if in sharp pain. This was too far, even for someone we knew to be lost... Cyndijaz Megg would have to pay dearly for this deed! “Help me bury her!” I commanded several of the soldiers, tears filling my eyes and my own words stumbling a bit as I spoke: “She did not deserve this. She was a good woman, an honorable and dedicated ruler to her people. I want some of her genetic material preserved, so that we can clone her as soon as we get back to our base. Then... we need to regroup and think about what to do next.” A bit of her skin and hair were taken... the hair was still capable of yielding undamaged samples that would aid in the cloning process, while the skin where it was not charred would do likewise. She was buried in a mass grave along with all those who had perished with her in that place. The fortress was now a tomb, and a symbol of freedom no longer. “We must send word to Aquarius somehow, of what transpired... if anyone can still somehow aid our cause to put a stop to Megg the Mad, it is surely the child queen.” I told this to Kor'ha and several of her trusted fellow spy units. Those brave men and women could travel in places where no one else would ever look, and they could reach the homelands of the House of Water faster than if I had sent a small army there. They knew the way... everyone did. The seats of our enemies had become common knowledge to us in the early days of the wars, but now they were to be our allies.
Weeks passed, and we had gathered at our hidden refuge far away from the lands ruled over by the now unquestionably evil Cyndijaz Megg. There was no one left who followed her willingly... all her most immediate family members defected to our cause and every day she must have been screaming about our treachery and betrayal of her. Though in truth, she had betrayed all of us! She was planning a direct offensive against the homeland of the House of Water in a cruel plan to wipe them out once and for all time... and as of yet, we had not gotten word back from those we sent to gain the aid of Aquarius and also to warn her of the rampage that Megg was hell-bent upon. It was hard waiting like that, but we began to hold out for hope that something surely would turn the tide in our favor. The castle where we met was perched high atop the cliffs of a region that did not even have a name, not far from an ancient abandoned city from the times before the empire even had an interest in this world. It was unable to be approached except by way of a narrow mountain pass and even more treacherous group of stairs that led up all the way to the castle's gate. The towers were mounted with anti-aircraft turrets, and the walls were reinforced by a force field generator that only was turned off to allow us to enter of exit the place. It was beyond safe, beyond secure! We would not be staying there long, but for the time being it was our home. The desert people began to rally to our cause in great multitudes, and soon we had an army more vast than anything the House of Fire could muster. For at our disposal were the elite soldiers who had defected from Megg to our cause, along with the innumerable people whom Megg had in her hate and spite been persecuting... along with my own hand-picked elite warriors. It was a force the size of which no one in Ra'qia's history had seen up until that point. But still we could not act until we heard from the child queen of the House of Water! Her pledge of assistance would ensure our victory. I stood in the highest tower with Sapphira at my side, her arm lovingly wrapped around my waist. We watched the men training below, and smiled. It was almost time to restore the rule of Imperial Law to this planet.
Published 10th May 2022
Author's Note
This is continuing from the end of "Ancient Memories Part II: The Wrath of the Golden Queen".
This is continued, in "Ancient Memories Part IV: The Clash of Fire and Water".
This is continued, in "Ancient Memories Part IV: The Clash of Fire and Water".
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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