the envoy walks the walls around the secret room of the emperor. he watches with dim eyes the blank and empty horizon beyond the forbidden city. aside from the comings and goings of the sun, the celestial repetition of the emperor himself, there is nothing new to see, and nothing to report.
nevertheless, the emperor must be entertained.
so, every evening, as the western sun casts red shadows across the ramparts, the envoy crawls, humble, to the screen separating his lowliness from the emperor, and in a voice bordering the audacity of speaking to a god, he tells a story.
there are laws against lying to the emperor, heaven on earth, but then again, the envoy has a duty to speak of the world to his charge, and maintain his spirits, that the heart beating within him remain constant, and the world continue its ceaseless turning.
and so, the envoy, his eyes blurring with the recounting and predicting, allows his tongue to wander, weaving tales from snatches of tapestried tales he had heard once, or never before, into a patchwork that he hopes will hold long enough to entertain the axis of the world...
such is his duty.
perhaps it is his failings as a storyteller, but the envoy has never heard the emperor laugh, nor cry, nor speak a single word. there is only a faint rustling breath.
and so, the envoy has never lit the signal fires, nor flown the flags. he has never sent a message out of the forbidden city to let the world know that the emperor is happy, and all may celebrate; or that the emperor was angry, and the war makers should gather and beat their shields; or that the emperor was sad, and the world should wear a funeral shroud. the world beyond the forbidden city operated as though without its heart, its center, its lord...
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