by David Winnie
Dawlish resisted the urge to kill Xaid on the spot. Alas, the crafty Sikh had enough of a dossier on the General to ensure his cooperation.
The Emperor had assumed the suite of offices his late father had used. A pair of guards in dress uniforms stiffened when the general approached, saluting sharply as guardians of the Khan demanded. The outer office was reminiscent of Angkor’s old office; cream walls over wainscoting. An efficient looking woman stood from behind an oak desk. “General Dawlish,” she lisped, “would you step right this way? The Emperor is engaged at the moment. Please, may I take your hat?” She directed him to a small room to the side, also of cream walls and wainscoting. “I will inform the Emperor that you are waiting for your appointment.” She closed the door firmly.
Waiting for my appointment? wondered the General. What manner of hubris was Angkor pushing now? Enough, save that for later. There are more important matters at hand for now.
An ancient ancestor clock marked the time with a slow tick-tick-tick… Dawlish fumed, the insult from the Emperor plain. He considered an insult of his own, gathering his cap and leaving without a word. But, no. Xaid had been firm. He was to remind Angkor who was in charge.
After nearly an hour, the receptionist appeared before him. “The Khan says he has a few minutes now, General,” she announced. “If you would follow me, please?”
He marched through the antechamber, where none of the half dozen secretaries looked up. She opened the double doors to the inner office and announced, “Highness, General Zoltan.”
Again, the clear insult. Angkor remained seated behind a large oak desk, scribbling on a pad. At the Khan’s side, a blue alien spoke in low, hurried tones, pointing at the pad. The general stood stiffly before the desk as the receptionist closed the door behind him.
Five more minutes passed before the Emperor, not looking up, asked, “Yes, General?”
“I would prefer the conversation were private, Sir,” Dawlish requested, attempting to be civil.
“This conversation is private,” Angkor stated.
“Not with the alien present, it isn’t. Sir.” Now Dawlish barely contained his contempt.
Angkor looked up, glaring at the General. “Cassius Finn is my most trusted advisor,” he snarled. “Are you implying the trusted advisor of the Khan is untrustworthy?”
“The matters I wish to discuss are between you and me. Not outsiders.” Dawlish stated.
“If I say he can be trusted, then you will trust him,” Angkor said in a dismissive tone. “If you will not trust him, then you may assume it is of no interest to me.”
“Do you forget yourself?” shot back the General.
“Do you forget yourself, General?” Angkor’s words were clipped and abrupt.
Cassius straightened. “This may be an opportune time for me to take a break, my Khan,” he said, “Fifteen minutes?”
Angkor nodded slightly, never breaking eye contact with Zoltan. “Well, General?”
Dawlish waited for the door to close. “Our friends would like me to remind you who placed you on your throne,” he stated.
“My father set me on this throne,” Angkor replied. “You and our…friends, facilitated my ascension, but ultimately it was Tenzing who placed me here.”
“So you say,” was the cool reply. “But I remind you of a few facts. Suishin and Shurkorov would have killed you had we not intervened.”
“So you say,” Angkor mocked Dawlish. “I have come to believe that the threat you presented me may not have been as dire as you reported. Indeed, my father had the situation well in hand until you deceived me.”
“And yet, there you sit. The recipient of the deeds of men,” Dawlish said. “You were a willing participant in the events. You made certain agreements with certain people. Those people want their recompense now.”
“Ah, so you are Xaid’s lapdog now,” Angkor smiled. “From my warlord to his messenger boy. Tell me, messenger boy, what is it your master wants?”
Dawlish’s hands slammed down on the ancient desk top. “Do not forget you are speaking to a Turkman!” he roared.
Angkor’s slug thrower had appeared in his hand from nowhere, aimed clearly between Dawlish’s eyes. “Do not forget you are speaking to your Khan,” he hissed.
Dawlish’s eyes narrowed. “I will not forget this insult,” he snarled. “Xaid reminds you of the contract you agreed to. This technology you have used to create your unholy brats belongs to him for development. You will provide the details and materials to him to develop this science. This will include the eggs supplied by the Vinithri.”
Impossible,” stated Angkor. “The agreement for the Vinithri eggs is between myself and the Vinithri Queen. And the technology is my own research, not subject to the agreement. You can tell Xaid he will need to find the answer for his Augmentons elsewhere.”
“Augmentons are illegal, Emperor.”
“You ought to remind your master of that fact, lapdog,” snarled Angkor.
Dawlish gathered himself. “You will provide the materials I have asked for,” he said. “You will have them ready by the end of the week.”
“I will not turn that information over to Xaid,” Angkor’s reply was set in stone. “The Vinithri will not provide any eggs. Xaid will cease his Augmenton experiments immediately or suffer the consequences.
Dawlish strode to the door. “You will provide the information, Angkor,” he ordered, “or it is you who will suffer consequences.”
“General?”
“Yes, Emperor?”
“You have not been dismissed.”
“May I be dismissed, Emperor?” Dawlish requested, contempt in every syllable.
“My Khan,” Angkor corrected.
“May I be dismissed, my Khan?” Dawlish’s tone became even more disrespectful.
“Be gone from my sight,” the Khan ordered.
“My father spoke to me of this,” Cassius said. “Of the terrible sin he and your father made you commit.”
“It was necessary,” Angkor replied. “Only I didn’t know this for some time after the fact. My brother was controlled by the Shurkorovs, with drugs and sex. That I became a servant to Xaid and his cronies was not clear to me until after they murdered my father.” He tapped the binder on his desk. “This will go a long way to make my amends for slaughtering Suishin.”
“It is finished, then?” the young alien asked.
“Yes,” Angkor nodded. “I have forwarded it to my Prime Minister for implementation immediately. Given the nature of General Zoltan’s meeting with me, I fear I will need some of its provisions soon.”
“Do you fear the Xaid cabal?”
He stared at the three stones closely. He himself had placed them, turning them as he thought he needed. But the water seemingly had a mind of its own. He could see now that Dawlish, for all the power he had given him, was subservient to Xaid. And the third was trickier still. Small, unobtrusive, it seemed to have little influence of its own. But he could clearly see now that his third position gave backbone to the other two. Eliminate that stone and Xaid’s position would be clearly weakened.
Dawlish would become inconsequential.
No longer. This,” he tapped the binder once again, “is the capstone. With it, the future of the Empire my father and I created is secure. Oh, they will strike at me, most certainly. They may even kill me. But this law will ensure the future of the Empire.”
He hefted the book. “Imagine, a law so simple our children will learn it in school. So common sense, our citizens and subjects will revere it. And so solid, any man of power who would stand against it will find themselves confronted by our entire Empire. All the people, Terran or otherwise, living in security, fairness and peace.”
“There are those who will fight it.”
“And there are many more who will defend it. I am curious to see what will become of our law in a thousand years. Two thousand years. Hell, a million years.” Angkor laughed.
“Our law, Khan?” asked Cas
sius. “You mean your law.”
Angkor stared deeply into the eyes of his friend. “Our law,” his voice was soft. “Oh, I will get the credit. My name will be praised and remembered. But I will know…Mithranderer will remember your influence, Cassius. The future of our Empire is in no small part due to your influence and guidance. For my people and my descendants, ‘thank you’ is too small of words.”
Cassius gripped his friend’s hand. “It is I who am grateful to be allowed to serve. Mithranderer says she will remember and she will remember the Great Khan, Angkor.”
“…And here it is, the law for which my father lay the foundation. The law I have spoken to you for forty years. The law for every being in my Empire, from the farmer in his fields where he works to make a life for his family, to the teacher in the school, instructing her students on what it means to be a citizen. The code that protects the less fortunate, the prisoner, the captive and the subjected people.
The law that binds me and my progeny to it, from how my successors are chosen, to how they shall rule. The law that keeps all our lawmakers in service to the governed.
It is implemented here and now. It exists for everyone this very moment. Your own laws of your worlds are unaffected, save where it conflicts with our law. Copies are being sent to every home, every school, and every library and in every language and medium for display.
To those who would oppose the law, I warn you. This is the law the people want. You violate it or stand against it at your own peril. As some people expressed, the law is severe, but just. Before you say a single word against it, I would suggest you read it and consider whether your opposition is worthy of the ire of the people…”
Emperor Angkor Khan, speech to the people on the implementation of the Law of Angkor Khan, 3070 A.D.
It could not be possible for a more beautiful day, young Cassius decided.
Spring was in full bloom in Zurich. The hills around the city were awash in green as the knolls and peaks shook off their white winter cloaks and exploded into ripening glory. The air, still crisp in the morning and scrubbed clean by the evening showers, tantalized the lungs of those who ventured out.
Even old Zurich shone in the new growth. Flowerboxes everywhere had been planted and the early blossoming flowers were eager to display their finery. The gray and gloom of the winter had been washed off the edifices and they fairly glowed, emoting rebirth for the old town.
Cassius broke fast with the Khan and his lady. Angkor was in fine spirits this morning and why not? His speech had been received well, and the whole of the Empire was singing its praise for the vibrant leader and his new, just law.
He had found them down at the gazebo next to Lake Lucerne, standing knee deep in the water. Angkor’s pants were wet. Sophia had pulled her orange sari up out of the water. She took a stone offered by her husband and tossed it in the water, her years-old clumsy attempt to skim the stone.
“No, no, my love,” giggled Angkor as he had hundreds of times in the past. “Move your arm flatter and flick your wrist.” He demonstrated, bouncing a stone a dozen skips across the still water.
She tried another stone, managing to bounce it three times. She clapped her hands, nearly dropping the hem of her gown in the water, and jumped up and down with excitement. She and Angkor kissed and she demanded another stone.
Cassius cleared his throat. “Good morning my Khan, Lady Sophia.”
“Oh, Cassius. Come, Sophia, we’re having breakfast with Cassius this morning,” They laughed and splashed water at each other as they strode ashore. Liveried servants appeared, drying the couple’s feet and helping them don slippers. Others brought tea, coffee and juices, along with cloches of warm food and bowls of fruit.
The young Mithranderer had never seen the royal couple acting so. Both were clearly enjoying themselves, sharing their food and laughing muchly. Cassius wished the Empire could see their Empress this way. Her blue eyes sparkled, she poked and prodded the Khan, tickling him and being tickled in return, far from the staid, demur air she put on for the press.
“You are in fine spirits this morning, my Khan,” stated Cassius.
“Indeed!” exclaimed Angkor. “So beautiful a morning in this dreary place. The most desirable woman at my side, the finest friend a man could ask for…Why shouldn’t I be happy for a change?”
Sophia had taken a mouthful of tea. Opening her lips, she sprayed a stream from between her teeth onto the face of Angkor and giggled. “Why, you…” he growled, tackling her from her chair with a shriek and a laugh as he nibbled and kissed her face and neck in the sweet grass.
“My Khan, my lady…” stammered Cassius. “As much fun as you are having, we do have a schedule to keep today.”
Angkor sighed and sat up. Sophia stuck her tongue out at Cassius and blew a raspberry. “Spoilsport!” she complained. “I have to go change for my trip, husband.” She kissed his nose, then bit it and jumped back. Laughing, she gathered the hem of her sari and raced to their residence.
Angkor clapped his friend around the shoulders. “Cassius, my friend,” he told the younger man, “We must simply find you a suitable wife. Of course, she won’t be Sophia, but you can only hope…”
An hour later, the royal couple stood at the ramp of the near orbit shuttle that would carry her back to Ulaan Baatar to prepare their grandchildren for the Naadam festival. She had changed into a bright yellow sari and was warmly wrapped in Angkor’s arms. Around them, the ground crew finished preparing the ship for its flight under the watching eyes of the Khan’s bodyguards. They gave the couple a wide, respectful space.
“I know it’s only days, my love, “he told her, “but each time we part, my heart longs for you.”
“As does mine, Husband.” She lay her head on his chest. “Yes, I can hear it. I hear your heart calling to mine.”
“I look forward to the day when it is just you and me in our home,” he sighed. “Just the two of us in our home by the water. Away from all of this.” He kissed the top of her head.
Sophia lifted her mouth to his. When their lips parted, she said, “How lucky this poor tea girl is, to have found her other half in such a fine man.”
A shuttle crewman stood nervously beside them. “Sir, Ma’am, it is time to go.”
She gave a sad little sigh. “I must go, Husband.”
“I will be in Ulaan Baatar next week, my love.”
“Your mother and I will have our grandchildren waiting, Husband,” she promised him.
He watched her walk up the gangway and enter the ship as she had hundreds of times for the last fifty years. The engines began to hum and vibrate, the air snapping around him.
“Angkor!” he heard her cry.
She was standing in the doorway, her yellow sari pressed against her body by the wind from the engines. She was saying something, but the noise was too great for him to hear. “I love you, Sophia!” he yelled, blowing her a kiss. Her eyes lit up and he saw her lips cry, “I love you, Angkor!” and she returned the kiss just as the door whooshed to a close.
Cassius waited at the side of the gleaming black ground car. Together, they watched the ship lift from the tarmac, turn and soar into the brilliant blue sky.
“Ah, Cassius, my young friend,” Angkor slapped the Mithranderer’s back jovially. “It is much too fine a day to race back to the office and go to work. What say we ditch the office and grab a powerboat. I have just received a case of fine Mongolian butter beer begging to be…” His face glowed from a distant flash. Angkor’s face went slack, his eyes wide.
“Sophia…NO!”
The expanding dirty grey- black cloud was tinged with the red and orange of the expanding fireball. Debris of the ship spun and tumbled away from the cloud, each trailing smoke as it sought its way back to earth.
The low rumble of the shuttle’s explosion hit them seconds later.
Chapter 29
June 3070 A.D.
The journey of the Ganga starts in the Himalayas to the north. The winter sno
ws on Sagarmatha and her sisters form glaciers which melt slowly through the summer months. Each trickle meanders it ways downhill, merging with other droplets to form a tiny rivulet. The rivulets gather together as a creek. The creeks become streams. The streams form ever-growing rivers.
And the rivers gather to form the sacred Ganga. It cuts through the heart of the ancient civilization and returns to the sea.
To the Hindi, it is the pathway to Moksha, the liberation from the cycle of life and death. For more than five millennia, the people of the River Goddess have bathed in her cleansing waters. In death, their ashes join with the cycle of the Goddess, to the sea, high in the clouds and gently back to Sagarmatha and her heavenly sisters.
A month after the explosion, they found Sophia’s remains. The wreckage of the shuttle had been strewn throughout the rugged Alps in a wide arc. They told Angkor she was found along a glacial stream in a small glade of edelweiss.
They reverently gathered what remained of the Empress, placing her in a simple casket and transporting her to Delhi at the Khan’s request. She was placed in stasis, for it would take time to gather her family.
Angkor dispatched a rail fold ship for Luftstra to gather Buru. The wall between them was as solid as granite, but the Brahmana had been quite specific. In life, Sophia had been a devoted daughter of the Bhadrakali, third of the Hindi gods. In death, her Shraaddha ceremony, returning her to the tender mercies of the Ganga, must be performed with equal devotion for her journey through the afterlife. Buru had a sacred duty to perform on the banks of the river - the Antyeshi, the ritual cremation.
Cleansed and swaddled in the red cotton shroud, Terra’s empress was borne on the shoulders of cousins and carried to the ceremonial crematorium yards from the river. Marigolds were placed around her and she noiselessly slid into the chamber. The thousands gathered prayed in silence as Buru stepped forward as tradition demanded. He had promised himself he would be stoic, not embarrass himself by falling to pieces at this moment. He wiped his face with a yellow silk kerchief, hoping no one could see how close he was to tears. The attendant opened the panel, revealing the red button.