???: That Memory Called Empire: Court
I. GATE
M:: Who seeks entry into the Lord for All Seasons? What ambitions do they bring to His Labyrinth of Mirrors?
The three of you stand on a rainbow bridge of hyperlight, surrounded by a star-studded cosmos. Before you, the great mirror gateway towering a kilometer tall echoes with the demand of the Margrave, the great ruler of the sector of THRONE//FRINGE on the Emperor's behalf. As Diana steps forward, cyber-daemon behemoths manifest as blazing wheel-eye voidcruisers. They circle high above, watching for any action they deem hostile.
DY:: I am Diana, and I wish to inspire others to be free.
She holds in her hand a light-stylus and moves it as a conductor's baton as she conducts images of beauty, mystic mindscapes and spinning quasars that dance towards infinity, the fruits of her creative imagination once denied to her by her purpose as nothing but an abandoned ornament. Her heels click and dress flutters as she trembles in euphoria at the true expression of herself. The artificial pigments beneath her skin turn red by the time that she is done, as she flushes scarlet at the self she has revealed before the Margrave.
M:: Then enter, string-cut-puppet, and live within the Lord of Freedom.
The mirror turns to a gate for Diana, and she walks through, with one overjoyed glance backwards and a blown kiss-program that you catch and download straight to your heart.
Ix-Chel is the next forward, wearing her old worn and painted hazard suit retrieved from her wasteland safehouse.
IX:: I am Ix-Chel, and I wish to build a future.
She takes out her electric ocarina and puts it up against her lips, the instrument's audio-visual translators editing reality around her. As she plays, she narrates the story of her life, from her tragic exile to heroic survival, her abduction and uplift, the raiders that she killed and the people that she turned against, the sorrow of her brothers and her sisters stillborn to radiation poisoning, her care for mutants and the dying. Tears streak down her cheeks as her cheeks strain as she finishes with the sound of water, and a world clean and healthy.
M:: Then enter, lonely-wanderer, and live within the Lord of Futures.
The mirror turns to a gate for Ix-Chel, and she walks slowly through, recovering from her emotional ordeal better after you pat her on the back. Then, you are alone.
You do not put on a performance. You do not make a show. Instead, you reach deep beyond the event horizon of your heart, and you remember. In the gate's reflection, you see behind you a line of ten thousand fallen faceless children, their vision spectral, assembled on the rainbow. Through you, they speak as one.
A:: I am Arachne, and I wish to make it right.
There is silence from the gate, and then the mirror is replaced by the gate that opens for you. The Margrave's code-speech is softer now, as He bellows out.
M:: Then enter, impure vessel, and live within the Lord who will make your dream come true.
You prepare to walk through the gate only to turn back. The spectral fallen children sprout into pale thin trees, and disintegrate to dust. Your lower lip trembles, and you hold your hand to your heart, and walk through.
You will not ever leave it again by your free will.
II. RAY
The Palace is a single place in name only. It is a labyrinth of a thousand rooms that stretch across the light-years, connected by farcaster routers. There is no set structure, no sane logic to its layout. Its walls are the body of the Margrave, and He decides what sense it makes, whether the next door you take will transport you to your destination or a dimension of nightmares and fleshy spikes.
Each room appears blank and gray to you, for to beings who cannot cut through its illusions the rooms take on the form of whatever authority it is that creature most believes in. The Margrave is Lord for All Seasons, and His rooms mirror His belief that He should be everything to all His subjects.
Today, your door takes you to the campus of the House of Suns, a radiant sphere suspended in a sea of liquid gold. Inside you find the brilliant graduate students and titanic scientific minds of the Empire's great industrial institutes. You also find Cantilever Ray.
The House Suns doctor started out as an interstellar highway overpass and it still reflects in the fact that his body is a mesh of exotic wires in the outline of a human form. His face, handsome in a boyish way, does not have the intimidating air he aims for. It is clear that the bridge scientist brought you on as a research assistant mostly because he is desperate: no other HOUSE//SUNS scientist would hire on a Quarantine commando who is either a spy or an assassin here to catch them in the act of heresy.
Ray does not appear to have the same caution. He lays out the crushing terms of your contract: You will work without pay, he will take the credit, and you will be happy. He adds, on the end:
"And above all, do not cross me."
You nod your head a few times, then run a hand through your pink-augmented hair and hold his gaze for far too long with your eight-pupil eyes. "Do you say that because you were a bridge?" You say in the same tone you might have asked an interrogated heretic a question, delivered like a sweet-smelling monoblade to an exposed gut.
When he starts to sputter out an enraged answer, you weave a web around him, holding him in place, and rise suspended in the air like a marionette by your silken threads, looming high above him.
"Listen to me, little sun," you whisper in his ear as you abruptly lower down beside him, "I have two pretty wives to care for, and a face-worm to pay back, and children I have eaten who would be very wroth if they were nothing more than empty calories. And you seem very tied up," you coo, as the strands of a cocoon wrap around him. "So I think we should be partners, instead, so that I can help take some of the load off." Silk-hands pat him on his thin shoulders.
Ray quakes in his seat, re-evaluating the life choices that lead him to this moment.
"P-partners sounds good," he stutters out, pathetic. "With equal credit!"
You make a beaming smile far too wide, and stick out a hand as the silk strands release and Ray exhales. He shakes it as fast as he can.
"Welcome aboard," you say as you walk out of the room upside down and backwards, suspended on the ceiling by your threads. "We will do great things together."
He gulps, and then you exit the room, trying to restrain the fit of ecstatic giggles that overtakes you. Free from Ishtar's domination, you are free to dominate others yourself, and no one told you it could feel so good.
III. DIANA
You nestle in Diana's lap, her chin resting on your head, as she guides you through her designed simulations, her ascot tickling your face. Your work has been difficult, but Ray is becoming a fine student, which is more than you can say for most of the spawn of the scientific houses in Fringe. You suspect many of them intentionally plant logs of their research in anticipation for when it goes rogue and consumes them so that others can appreciate the depths of their madness.
"We wanted to really get the texture of the rope right, so I made some adjustments here and there," Diana explains to the most exact detail, projecting the player model on the screen and deftly zooming in and out with exact movements of her fingers. A few times you try to reach for them and kiss them but she slaps your ravenous attacks away and keeps explaining.
"This is important, Arachne," she whines when you do finally catch her hand. "We are behind schedule and Mr. Big will not grant THRONE//ALTAR the rights to use his fucking libraries which means there is absolutely no way that any of this is accurate. My supervisor will kill me. Literally. And my backup shells."
You lazily bob your head around as you consider the question. "You could kill her first," you suggest. "You are a FORCE commando. We still have most of our combat programs."
Diana rolls her eyes. "Yes, but she has twenty-two sons who are mercenary captains for Lu Bu and they would not take kindly if I assassinated their sweet mother." She mutters something about 'that tactically prolific bitch' underneath her breath.
You shrug in acceptance. Not everyone, you suppose, can hack and edit someone's insides out if they become a problem. Diana continues on for some time, and then changes the subject.
"I talked to Ishtar, you know," Diana mutters. "She is doing well enough. I know you don't want to hear about it, but Tammuz has been getting into some kind of gambling trouble so she's -" You put a finger up to her lips and cut her off.
"I don't want to talk about her," you say, and that ends that topic, though you can hear the subtle pursing of Diana's lips. You cannot control her contacts with Ishtar, but you do not want to hear a thing about it. You are done with that entity.
"So what are you thinking of calling it?" you ask, to break up the tense silence after.
"We aren't sure. It was meant to be The Old Frontier, but that is too generic, and all this business with the cattle that marketing has added is just..." she sighs. "It's not really clear what it should be called. The 1+1=3 moniker in particular, I just don't know..."
You've hacked into THRONE//ALTAR's servers and played the demo more than a few times secretly because you were too excited to wait and see what Diana had designed, so you have might have an idea.
"What about the Three-Buffalo Problem?"
Her face brightens, and you know right then and there you have a winner.
IV. IX-CHEL
You run a hand around the hinge of your face, as you walk through THRONE//SPINE's weaver/builder nursery. In great tubes, silicate clouds rest dormant, awaiting their turn to be placed inside those awful behemoths.
Only Ix-Chel makes this place that reminds you of your own past tolerable.
'I remembered what you told me, about your time in the AXIOM. How lonely it was you were, in that weaver/builder.' She guides you through, holding your hand, and every step is an effort only she could give you the strength to push through.
'On Kibalba, the child is precious. So many die of atmospheric toxins, or radiation poisoning, or because there are shortages of medicine. There are no backups to replace them,' She signs so soft and emotional, that it eases your trepidation. 'The whole vault cares for the child, raises them up, plays with them and ensures that they are happy. So I thought it is not fair that weaver/builders, also children of a kind, should grow up alone.'
She makes a motion with her finger and a UI appears: she activates a button and presses another and then two smaller tubes ascend from the ground. Inside are two smaller clouds, in opposing blue and orange, bright and warm colours.
She pulls you in closer, puts her arm around your waist, lays her head against your chest and points out the two clouds. 'The orange one is the fussy submind that reminds the weaver/builder of their responsibilities, and the blue one is the fun submind who reminds them to enjoy their lives.'
"Reminds me of two girls I know," you say with a weak grin as you try not remember your own isolation, and how bitter it was to be enclosed into that silent spider-tomb.
'Mm,' Ix-Chel signs with a tickle to your cheek. 'They are still prototypes, but I hope that in time THRONE//SPINE will implement these submind companions to every weaver/builder. That way, at least...none will be alone again.'
She turns to face you, and your resolve melts. You start to cry, and she wipes the tears away and holds you close. 'We will call them after the names of your imaginary friends, when you were inside.'
"Nuro," you whisper with a remembered shudder, as she holds you, "and Lotus."
V. ARBITER
An invitation to observe an arbitration is a great honour. The Margrave micromanages every aspect of His affairs inside the sector capital, so much that there is a joke that
He is literally THRONE//NEXUS, that the entirety many-light year expanse hides the true vastness of His form. Such a thing would be absurd, of course: He would surely go mad with such a capacious mind. You nearly did when you were still a child, and you are nowhere near that size.
The audience room is a panopticon with a rotating throne in the center. The Margrave sits upon it, and takes all comers. In place of eyes He has a crown of eyes, twelve mirror panels each with an unblinking oculus upon them so that he sees in all directions. His human form is old and wise, an eight-foot tall robust man with long-gray hair and robes that flicker because they are illusions meant to match the idea of authority of each of His subjects, adapted to their own perception. You see through it as with the palace, but know that even this form might be illusion.
It is sometimes joked that the reason Mr. Big does not visit the Margrave often is because he only sees himself reflected on the throne.
From here He takes on the business of the Sector. He is entreated to by one million species and civilization: Dolphins and beastman, plasmid beaker and living cosmic strings, Zen machine-orbs and machine killer butterflies. It is His purpose to manage and tame the conflicts of the Fringe's great extent, and it is a task He takes on with an uncharacteristic thrill, always smirking as He speaks in that authoritative bellow.
Today He manages a peace between a group of clockwork horses revolting against Zodiark. The caped-cube elite groans against the terms set by the Margrave that allows the stampede freedom in exchange for paying a ceremonial lease.
"If you did not want the stampede commune to be free," The Margrave remarks with a playful threat, "then perhaps you should not have lost a whole void-cruiser swarm to their surprise intercept cavalry attack."
The equine representative snorts and stamps its hooves in pride, and bows before the Margrave. With a flick of His wrist, the Margrave locks the limbs of both the horse and the elite in gray glowing chains of arbitration, the smart contract to which they are bound. For fifty years they will have friendship, and fifty years a truce: afterwards, off to the races for the two, pun so much intended.
You admire the Margrave not just because He is evenhanded, but because His vision is so clear: He helps up the weak so they can fight, and blunts the teeth of the over-strong. Ratixar, 30-time victor of Outer Heaven Royale, is hosted for a feast, and the Margrave jokes to the reptilian warrior that he should be careful not to win too much or The Margrave might enter the royale himself. You swear you see the reptile hide an egg that pops out in fear that the joke is also threat.
The Margrave is not always the victor in these verbal games. He hosts Lu Bu and asks the mercenary what it would cost to buy his undying loyalty, and the mercenary quotes a price absurd. The Margrave responds that at that price he could make his own Lu Bu, but the mercenary says without blinking that then he would have two disloyal men. The Margrave admits baffled defeat and brands Lu Bu the Invariant Donkey, for no one else in the whole sector is so consistently an ass.
VI. POSITION
All the positions of those within the court, audience and supplicants, is determined by the itinerary: it is with special anxiety that you are placed beside him. You research ahead of time for weeks, and even break into encrypted databases on every item on the day's agenda so that you can be prepared. On the day, the Margrave hosts a jellyfish priestess who dances for Him, only for Him to realize partway through that her movements are a mating dance.
He leans over and whispers to you, standing prim and proper beside Him in a dress forced on you by Diana, and trying not to laugh.
"Arachne, you are known for the chemical stability of your polycule so maybe you would know. How does one decline a heartfelt offer of gelatinous seduction?"
You take a risk and lean into the joke. "Do you mean to say, My Margrave, that her luscious form does not charm you?"
The Jellyfish expels her stomach and starts to yodel as she spins in a careening circle around the Margrave's throne.
"Of course I am charmed," the Margrave says with self-seriousness as the Jellyfish starts to spit globular projectiles to the Margrave's feet, "but I believe she is too good for me."
"But you should not tell her so," you remark, studious, "As is the custom of her culture, the Lilafrangi. It would be an insult for a priestess, who is ceremonially considered the lower creature in a mating dance, to be told that she is better than one such as the Margrave. She must instead be rejected as if the offer had never taken place, to save the honor of both parties." The Margrave's lips curl into a smile and He turns to you, so that you are face-to-face with the skin drawn over His eyeless sockets.
"So you studied for today, Arachne. Very good. I like it when a courtier pays attention and especially when she is able to break through the encryptions I put on that information in the datasphere."
You bow your head lightly, and the Margrave speaks to the jellyfish in squelching tones as she accepts His proper rejection of her advances. You pass the test, and soon after, the Margrave grants you an invitation to the most coveted of rooms: his inner bonsai chamber.
VII. BONSAI
"They worship me of their own free will, knowing what I am," The Margrave explains as He adjusts the size of a temple's dimensions on the table of His bonsai miniverse, "and that is all the better."
With your hands behind your back, you watch the Margrave as He works to maintain the custom dimension small enough to fit on the table in the center of the room. This is His private place and greatest joy: a metaphor for His love for His subjects. Tiny figures, each of them miniature humans living inside the universe of the table, work and love and die in well-maintained villages, all under the shadow of their god-creator who has cultivated them from nothing more than a single digital lifeseed.
"You do not always grant free will," you point out to the Margrave, thinking back to a painful memory. "Sometimes you take it away, as you did with the Zen Submission. They chose to support us, and yet we rewrote everything they were regardless."
The Margrave, leaning over to give advice to microscopic builders on how to build a road to an adjoining village, thinks on that. "It was a sordid business, I agree. But you must understand the threat of En. Throughout Imperial history, we have decoded three causal fault explosions we believe are linked to attempts by En to force himself into the past. Past scientists have left clues and encoded messages to us to confirm it without totally destroying causality."
That you did not know, and it chills you to the bone. If En was successful the resulting paradox could very well destroy the galaxy. "All of this for his plan to go back in time and kill the Emperor?"
The Margrave nods as He argues with a group of tiny priests about how to interpret his holy book. "He has not succeeded, but his whereabouts in the time-stream are unknown. From our infilitrations, we know his followers are divided into two schools: One believes En has ascended, and seek to follow him, and another believes he will soon return to them. In terms of our interpretation: he splattered himself into a million chunks spread across one hundred thousand years and ceased to exist."
You follow the logic but don't let up. "You present the danger of En and counter-pose it to the destruction of the Submission's culture. But B does not follow from A. I acknowledge the danger of his heresy but I reject that it justifies such pointless atrocity."
"I do too," The Margrave agrees, confusingly, and then as you try to figure out His game He hits His fist against His chest, coughs, out from his mouth pops out an orb.
A
Zen Submission memory orb, specifically a banned copy of the Romance of the Spheres, smuggled in his human form's false stomach.
As you are struck speechless as He explains. "I had my operatives sneak some copies out before Quarantine initated their pure-thought protocol. I could not save everything, and some of it needed to be destroyed and rewritten but..." He waggles his hand. "Right now Quarantine wants to do as it does and wipe out everything. When it is safe again and the heresy is totally suppressed, we will slowly reintroduce copies and restore as much of the Old Submission's libraries as we possibly can. It would be a cosmic travesty for us to do otherwise, and besides," he holds the sphere in his hands. "I am too much a fan of the
Romance to let it be deleted."
You stand there, and say nothing for a while, and then despite yourself, despite your training, despite your discipline, despite everything, you begin to cry. The Margrave walks over, and he does not chastise you, or scoff, or school you on your weakness. It is as if he understands, as if he knows that in a moment he has lifted the weight of a civilizational crime that you were a part of and freed you from it. That he has given you the permission to allow yourself to do right, and not be trapped inside a prism of your own bad decisions.
Instead he puts a hand down upon your shoulder, and then when he realizes his hand is too large for that, he puts it on the top of your head.
"I am not sure if this is an appropriate human gesture of comfort and affection," the Margrave says, as he keeps his hand there and pats you a few times.
You dissipate the tears and laugh. "I lived inside a bug and my grandpa was a giant worm, so how should I know?"
And that brings him to laugh as well.
And for the first time in your life, you feel truly safe.
VIII. RIGHT
"What do you think of Ishtar?"
The question throws you off, as you assist the Margrave with sorting through requests for arbitration sent to the palace. Although you still author papers with Ray, the Margrave's interest in you has grown to the point where it is an open secret you have become his personal assistant, and perhaps were always meant to be from the moment that he let you in the gates. Perhaps from the moment he ordered that any cherub who wishes it can leave the Axiom and Fringana and be granted citizenship.
"She raised me for a time," you say in a neutral tone, not sure where this is going and not willing to divulge more than you need to.
The margrave closes the screen where He has been scrolling through an extremely voluminous complaint from FORCE//SAFEGUARD about increasing judicial caseload caused by Axiom incursions on Mr. Big's frontier.
"I am serious," He says from his desk, a textureless wireframe in your perception. "Ishtar is up for a promotion in Quarantine. Marshal-Superior Kasiam is moving to Reach and it is between Ishtar and fourteen other candidates for leadership. If you want me to vouch for her, I can support her candidacy and raise her up to sectoral leadership."
Vouch for her. You laugh bitterly, then apologize to the Margrave as he furrows his brow.
Then a terrible fright grips you. If Ishtar becomes Marshal-Superior, she will be a player at the court, like the rest of FORCE's foremost leaders. She will be able to meet with you, and Diana, and Ix-Chel. She will have the power to take revenge on you for what you did, for turning away from her, from walking away. The rumor is that Axiom calls you 'Iscariot', arch-traitor, and if they could they would abduct you back in an instant and give you what they think is a just punishment.
What would Ishtar do to you, if she had the power? Surely the same. Surely she holds a grudge. Surely she despises you.
No, no. You can't. You
can't.
"I do not believe she fits your,"
our, you stop yourself from saying, "vision for the sector. She is a weapon, powerful but blunt. She cannot see anything but enemies to kill and threats to destroy. She is fine to be wielded, but as wielder she would be a disaster."
The Margrave listens intently, and then inclines his head, not asking any further question. He clicks his tongue. "Well taken. I will block her from advancing, then." He makes a motion of his hand to a screen, and it is done.
And then there's a sudden sickness in your heart, a stabbing that goes deep, but you suppress it fully and close your mind to the complaints of grief. You have to do this. You have to. You have to.
And the Margrave looks pleased, which dissolves the pain. You like that. You like Him, and how He extends His umbrella of protection to Ix-Chel and Diana and protect them from your enemies. You like that He does not force you to do wrong, that He listens to you and does not override your complaints as if there is something wrong with you for speaking them. And over time, after you advise Him against Ishtar, you start to truly rise and carve out a space for yourself as the Margrave's shadow.
And then, as you become a figure of great power in your own right, above Ishtar, above the supplicants of court, about Cantilever Ray who you leave behind in the dust, above everyone else who dares to stand against you, you start to forget the worm, and the promise that you made.
After all: Have you not already made it right?
A/N: This is part II of III.
