The Carpet Makers

by Andreas Eschbach

  The transporter descended until it was shooting so low over the surface of the sea that he could have touched the crests of the almost imperceptible swells. The outer walls of the Palace approached rapidly and rose higher and higher. A gate opened like a great maw and swallowed them, and behind it, the transporter landed in the center of a tall courtyard.

  “You are being transferred to the Life Guard of the Emperor,” said the commander.

  Jubad flinched. That could mean nothing good. The Imperial Life Guard—they were the most devoted of the most select, the elite of the elite, devoted to the Emperor unto death and ruthless with themselves and others. Twelve of them, powerful giants in gold uniforms, all resembling one another like brothers, awaited him on the landing pad.

  “Too much honor,” he muttered nervously.

  He was placed in the center of the Life Guard contingent, and they waited with expressionless faces until the transporter had departed. Then one of them stooped down and removed his shackles. There was condescension in this act: he seemed to be saying, You can’t possibly escape from us even if you can run.

  They led him through endless hallways. Fear throbbed in Jubad, but still he took in everything, every step and every impression. Soon, maybe in the next hallway or in the one after that, a door would open to a room where his life would end. The sterile glow of the instruments in that room would be the last light to enter his eyes, and his own screams would be the sounds he would carry with him into the darkness of eternity.

  They climbed a broad stairway. Jubad noted it with confusion. He had instinctively assumed that the interrogation rooms and torture chambers would be located in the lower levels of the Palace—in the cellars where no one lived and where no one would hear any screams. But to the beat of their marching, the guardsmen led him across polished marble floors, through gold-trimmed portals and magnificent halls filled with art treasures from all the galaxies of the Empire. When they stepped through a small side door, his heart beat like a mallet in his chest, but behind the door was nothing but an unadorned white room. With the exception of several armchairs and a table, it contained only a small control panel. They signaled him to stop, took up positions around the room and at the doors, and waited. Nothing happened.

  “What are we waiting for?” Jubad asked finally.

  One of the guardsmen turned to him. “The Emperor wants to see you,” he said. “Be quiet.”

  Jubad’s thoughts leapt back and forth and tied themselves in knots; his lower jaw suddenly dropped open without control. The Emperor? He felt searing terror ignite within him. No one had ever heard of the Emperor participating in person in an interrogation.

  The Emperor wanted to see him. What could that mean?

  It took quite a while before it dawned on the rebel what that meant. It meant that soon the Emperor would come here himself. Here into this room. Probably through the door that was guarded by two soldiers on either side. The Emperor would come here to confront the rebel.

  Jubad’s thoughts stampeded about like a spooked herd of animals. Was this an opportunity? If he tried to attack the Emperor himself, they would certainly kill him, they would have to kill him, quickly and painlessly. Here was the chance he had been waiting for. He would show the tyrant that a rebel knows how to die.

  In the midst of Jubad’s thoughts, the door opened. The Life Guardsmen came to attention. With measured steps an older, somewhat stocky man entered; in comparison to the guardsmen, he looked like a dwarf. He had graying temples and wore a monstrously tacky uniform, hung everywhere with spangles and tinsel. He gave a stately look around and then said:

  “The Emperor.”

  With these words, he fell to his knees, spread his arms, and bowed humbly until his forehead nearly touched the floor. The Life Guardsmen did the same, and finally Jubad was the only one still standing.

  And then the Emperor entered the room.

  There are things one forgets and things one remembers, but among the latter, there are just a very few moments in life that remain burned forever, like oversize, glowing images, into the memory. Whenever Jubad was later asked what the most impressive and most soul-stirring moment of his life was, he had to admit reluctantly: it was that moment.

  The presence of the Emperor hit him like the blow of a hammer. Of course he knew the face; every human being knew it. Over the course of centuries, an intimate familiarity with this face seemed to have become part of the heritage of mankind. Jubad had seen films of the Emperor, had heard speeches by him, but none of that had prepared him for—for this.…

  There he was. The Emperor. For tens of thousands of years, ruler over humankind, ruler over the entire inhabited universe, ageless and beyond all ordinary human scale. He was a slender, tall man with a powerful body and a sharply molded, nearly perfect face. Clothed in a simple white robe, he entered the room with infinite composure, without the slightest superfluous movement, and without haste. His eyes fell on Jubad, who had the sensation he was falling into them, as though they were two bottomless wells.

  It was overpowering. It was like meeting a mythological figure. Now I understand why people think he’s a god! was all Jubad’s poor brain could think.

  “Rise.”

  Even the sound of his voice was familiar, dark, nuanced, restrained. It was the voice of someone who lived outside time. Around Jubad, the men of the Life Guard rose and stood with humbly lowered heads. Appalled, Jubad realized that he, too, had spontaneously fallen to his knees when the Emperor entered. He leapt up.

  The Emperor looked at Jubad again. “Take off his shackles.”

  Two of the guardsmen freed Jubad from the remaining chains, which jangled as they rolled them up and slipped them inside the pockets of their uniforms.

  “Now leave me alone with the rebel.”

  Dismay registered on the faces of the soldiers for an instant, but they obeyed without delay.

  The Emperor waited motionless until everyone had disappeared and closed the doors behind them. Then he glanced quickly at Jubad with a thin, inscrutable smile and walked past the rebel into the room, carelessly turning his back to him as though he were not even there.

  Jubad felt almost dizzy with the heat of something pulsing inside him that said, Kill him! Kill him! This was an opportunity that would not come again in a thousand years. He was alone with the tyrant. He would kill him, with bare hands, with teeth and fingernails, and would free the Empire from the dictator. He would fulfill the mission of the rebels—alone. His hands drew silently into fists, and his heart beat so powerfully that it seemed it must be echoing through the room.

  “All your thoughts,” the monarch said abruptly, “are focused on the idea of killing me. Am I right?”

  Jubad swallowed. The air escaped from his lungs with a gasp. What was happening here? What sort of game was the Emperor playing with him? Why had he sent his Life Guard away?

  The Emperor smiled. “Of course I’m right. The rebels have dreamed of a situation like this for centuries—to be alone with the hated despot.… Isn’t that so? Come on … say something. I’d like to know what your voice sounds like.”

  Jubad swallowed. “Yes.”

  “You would like to kill me, right?”

  “Yes.”

  The Emperor spread out his arms. “Well, warrior, here I am. Why don’t you try it?”

  Jubad squinted suspiciously. He scrutinized the God-Emperor waiting there patiently in his unadorned white robe, his hands spread out in a gesture of defenselessness. Yes. Yes, he would do it. At worst, he would die in the attempt. And besides, dying was the only thing he now desired.

  He would do it. Now. Immediately … as soon as he figured out how to get his body to react. He looked into those eyes, the eyes of the Emperor, the Lord of the Elements and the Stars, the Omnipotent Sovereign, and his inner strength flagged. His arms cramped. He gasped. He would do it. He had to kill him. He had to, but his body did not obey him.

  “You can’t do it,” the monarch observed. “I wante
d to show you that. Respect for the Emperor is rooted deeply in all of you, even in you rebels. It makes it impossible for you to attack me.”

  He turned away and walked to the small control panel, beside which two armchairs faced the wall. With a casual, almost graceful gesture, he extended his hand and activated a switch; a section of the wall slid noiselessly aside, revealing to view a gigantic three-dimensional projection map of a star panorama. Jubad recognized the outlines of the Empire. Each individual star appeared to be represented, and the reflection of the galaxies bathed the room in which they were standing in a spectral light.

  “I often sit here for hours and consider the things over which I have power,” said the Emperor. “All these stars with their planets are mine. This entire, incomprehensible universe is the realm in which my will is done and my word is law. But power, real power, is never power over things, not even over suns and planets. The only real power is power over people. And my power is not simply the power of weapons and of force; I also have power over the hearts and the thoughts of people. Billions upon billions of people live on these planets, and they all belong to me. None of them passes a day without thinking of me. They honor me; they love me. I am the focal point of all their lives.” He looked at Jubad. “Never has there been an Empire greater than mine. Never has a human being had more power than I have.”

  Jubad stared at the Emperor, this man whose facial features were subject to less change than the constellations in the firmament. Why was he telling him this? What did he intend to do with him?

  “You are wondering why I am telling you this and what I intend to do with you,” the Emperor continued. Jubad nearly jumped with the shock of realizing of how swiftly and easily the Emperor had seen through him. “And you are also wondering whether I can possibly read thoughts.… No, I can’t. It’s not necessary. What you think and feel is written on your face.”

  Jubad sensed almost physically how vastly inferior he was to this ageless man.

  “By the way, I have no intention of having you interrogated. So you can relax. I am telling you all this because I want you to understand something.” The monarch gave him an inscrutable look. “I already know everything I want to know. Even about you, Berenko Kebar Jubad.”

  Jubad could not keep himself from flinching when he heard the Emperor speak his name.

  “You were born twenty-nine years ago on Lukdaria, one of the secret base worlds of the rebel organization, the first son of Ikana Wero Kebar and Uban Jegetar Berenko. At age twelve you undertook your first reconnaissance mission, were then trained in heavy weaponry and ship artillery, named support vessel commandant and then ship’s captain and finally appointed to the Consulting Staff of the Rebel Council.” An almost mocking smile flickered across the Emperor’s face when he saw Jubad’s bewilderment. “Should I recount for you some spicy details of your little affair with that young navigator? You had just turned sixteen, and her name was Rheema—”

  Jubad was horrified. “How … how do you know that?” he stammered.

  “I know everything about all of you,” said the Emperor. “I know names, positions, and the condition of your armaments on every one of your base planets—Lukdaria, Jehemba, Bakion, and all the others. I know about your shadow government on Purat, your secret alliances on Naquio and Marnak, and I am even familiar with your secret base Niobai. I know every single one of you by name, I know your goals, and I know your plans.”

  He might as well have run Jubad through with a red-hot sword. The fright was almost fatal. Jubad had forearmed himself against torture designed to tear this information from him, and he had been prepared to die to keep any one of these names secret.

  His legs gave way under him. Without noticing what he was doing, he sank into one of the armchairs. After everything he had experienced, he was on the verge of losing consciousness.

  “Ah,” said the Emperor, and bowed his head respectfully. “I see you are a true rebel.”

  It took a while for Jubad to understand what he meant: He had taken a seat while the Emperor was still standing. That would normally have been interpreted as an insult worthy of death. Still, Jubad remained seated.

  “If you know all that,” he said, struggling to bring his voice under his control, “then I wonder what you want from me.”

  The Emperor looked at him with eyes as unfathomable as the abyss between the stars. “I want you to return and see to it that the plans are changed.”

  Indignant, Jubad jumped to his feet. “Never!” he shouted. “I will die first.”

  For the first time, he heard the Emperor laugh out loud. “You believe that will accomplish something? Don’t be stupid. You see that I know everything about all of you. From one hour to the next, I could wipe out the entire rebel movement, every last man without a trace. I am the only one who knows how many revolts and rebellions there have already been, and I was always delighted to defeat and exterminate the rebels. But this time I will not do that, because the rebel movement plays an important role in my plans.”

  “We won’t allow ourselves to be your tool!”

  “You may not like it, but you have been my tool from the beginning,” the Emperor responded calmly and added, “I founded the rebel movement.”

  Jubad’s thoughts were paralyzed—permanently, it seemed to him.

  “What?” he heard himself mutter feebly.

  “You know the history of the movement,” said the Emperor. “About three hundred years ago in the border worlds, a man appeared who gave inflammatory speeches and knew how to incite the people against the rule of the Emperor. He founded the nucleus of the rebel movement, and he wrote the book that has remained the most important work of the movement and whose title gave the movement its name. The book is called The Silent Wind, and the man’s name was Denkalsar.”

  “Yes.”

  “I was that man.”

  Jubad stared at him. The earth beneath him seemed to crumble away, piece by piece.

  “No…”

  “It was an interesting adventure. I disguised myself and agitated against the Empire … then I returned to the Palace and fought the rebels I had goaded into action myself. I have traveled around in disguise innumerable times during my life, but that was the greatest challenge. And I was successful—the rebel movement grew and grew, unstoppable—”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  The Emperor smiled sympathetically. “Just examine the name. Denkalsar—an anagram of my name, Aleksandr. Did none of you ever notice?”

  The ground beneath Jubad finally seemed to fall away completely. The abyss opened up to swallow him whole.

  “But—why?!” he burst out. “Why would you do all that?”

  He already knew the answer. It had just been a game the Emperor had played against himself in his boredom, just to pass the time. Everything Jubad had believed in with every fiber of his being had in reality only been for the amusement of the immortal, all-powerful sovereign. He had given birth to the rebel movement; he would wipe it out again, when he had tired of it.

  There seemed to be no chance, no hope in the face of his omnipresence. Their struggle had been hopeless from the beginning. Maybe he really was the god people believed him to be, Jubad thought dully.

  The Emperor watched him silently for a long time but didn’t appear to be seeing him. His gaze was absent. Memories, millennia old, were reflected in his face.

  “It has been a long time, and it may be hard to imagine, but I was once also a young man the same age as you are now,” he began to explain slowly. “I understood that I had only one spark of life, and I had to grab on to whatever I wanted before that spark went out. And I wanted a lot. I wanted everything. My dreams knew no bounds, and I was prepared to do anything to make them reality, to demand everything of myself in order to reach the pinnacle. I wanted to accomplish what no one had ever accomplished; I wanted to be the master of all classes, the victor in every discipline, I wanted to hold the universe in my hand, along with its past and its future.�
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  He gestured vaguely. “The contents of the conscious minds of the emperors before me still live inside me, and that is why I know they were motivated by the same drive. In my youth Emperor Aleksandr the Tenth ruled, and I was determined to become his heir. I managed to get accepted to his school, The Sons of the Emperor, and I lied and deceived, bribed and murdered, until I had become his favorite. On his deathbed, he bequeathed sovereignty over the Empire to me, entrusted me with the secret of long life, and received me into the brotherhood of emperors.”

  Jubad hung on every word the monarch spoke. His head reeled at the thought of the unimaginably distant time when all this had occurred.

  “But there was still more to attain, still more to achieve. I had power and a long life, and I fought to get more power and more life. I could not rest until I had turned long life into immortality. I made war after war to expand the borders of the Empire farther and farther into the infinity of the universe. The more power I had, the more I craved. There was no end. It was a fever that drove us onward. Whatever we already had, there was always the promise of still more.”

  The gaze of the Emperor was directed at the star projection. “We achieved power, held onto it, and enjoyed it ruthlessly to the fullest. We made wars, suppressed or exterminated peoples, and always imposed our will without mercy. There was no one who could stand up to us. We committed atrocities that make all history sound like children’s tales, atrocities for which language has no words and which no mind can imagine. And nobody ordered us to stop. We waded through blood up to our hips, and no bolt of lightning struck us down. We stacked up skulls into heaps, and no higher power prevented us. We offered up rivers of human blood, and no god intervened. So we concluded that we ourselves were gods.”

  Jubad hardly dared to breathe. He felt he would suffocate, crushed by what he was hearing.