The Empress
Two sets of walls separated the palace from the chaos beyond, within lay a sprawling garden.
Beneath the soft white arcades that held up the clouds, between carved doors joined by handcrafted stone pathways which laced under towering king palms, sat a bubbling fountain that had been built when I was too young to remember what came before it. Walls were adorned with unattainable carvings, patterns of natural complexity that filled a fractal matrix known only by their maker, a secret that had been drawn from the stone itself. Hidden behind the carvings and the arcades, a home lay nearly silent. Yet a low thrum buzzed constantly, the shuffling of feet, the whispers of servants. An ever-present reminder of the requirements of life for power.
A lone woman walked into the courtyard, wearing only a light robe. Long raven hair brushed across covered shoulders as her tall frame exited from under the far archway. Her words fell from her lips like gentle morning rain across the garden, nearly silent and yet unmistakable.
She walked around the fountain, and we met in the calm night. Water trickled, the palace hummed, the birds rustled in their nests. Far above, the moon and the stars danced. The trees settled into their cool midnight slumber. The palace murmur softened on carpeted floors and marble steps. Constellations danced across her eyes; the stories told in the dark shards of her irises reflected an eternity that seemed to be disapearing.
The cold breeze shook sand from the lofty fronds. Dew weighed upon the garden’s silent breath. She told me she was discontented as we walked towards the eastern wing, and for a moment I was back on the bluffs over the sea, filled with an unshakeable emptiness. Moonbeams fell between the low clouds that dragged dust across the sky, painting the tiles of the pathway with gentle light. The palms sat below the heavens, casting shadows, tall and vague.
We sat facing the silver moon, her hand laced into my fingers with practiced affection, habitual and unchanging. She asked if we were nearing the end. The question was new, but it did not surprise me. The sun had set, some time ago now. I could call upon some who would tell me when it would rise again. They would speak of patterns and science, faith and tradition, study and prayer. They would stay warm by fires and under cloaks, while others freeze in the night.
I asked if she was warm. She said she was not.
Yes, we are nearing the end. Her fingers stayed still, cold.
How much higher can we build in this desert? How wider can we stretch our rivers? When the sun falls from the sky where does the land meet it?
Memories collapsed upon me like a temple under siege. The sounds of wailing hunger in the first winter nights. A failed hunt that pushed my father onto a cane. Our firstborn daughter’s tiny limp hands, her unmoving lips. The temple shook, the people’s eyes ran empty with hunger. The garden was silent, the palace stirred.
I turned back towards her, a dark green robe that held the moonlight like silk, a complex face of deep angles and gentle curves, an unburdened smile of serenity. Her brows sat sharp but gentle; her lashes curled upwards in the slightest bow. Her face mirrored my anxiety, my loss, my impotence, yet suggested none of it.
I stood to flee, but gently she held fast to my hand. She said nothing, but it was not time yet; the end was not quite here, and she wanted to know how it would go. There were two ways. I sat down again, fingers still laced with hers.
One, where the memories we forgot for pleasure and wandering burn again for our children like the morning sunrise. They consume and destroy the night in blazing light, reducing all that hides in the shadows and creeps on its stomach into dust. The memories take their toll with a dispassionate procession toward order, blowing away the sins of yesterday. They are joined by new spirits of the struggle and bake the earth into solid metal from which the next generation build upon again. This is the first way it ends.
The second is we are destroyed. We succumb to sickness and rot. We forget forever the things which we once built upon, losing ourselves in dark dens and silent deaths. We forsake our children for yesterday’s meal and today’s night, leaving them to fight amongst the climbing insects and beneath the ravenous beasts. They will suffer and gnash until they are destroyed because they will know nothing else. We will be erased, first in life, then as winds blow and rains erodes, in death.
And how will we end? Which way will we go?
I look at her again. Her eyes hold the moonlight as it pools within her pupils. I see high towers, lush gardens, sprawling cities, and never-ending oceans. A shadow is standing above me, still blocking the sun. The palace stirs.
I do not know.
