The Usurper

19

The Annals are often laconic.

Consider the terse entry, “The sky was dark with the coming of ships.” Much, we suppose, lies behind so curt an entry.

One can gather, of course, that there were a great many ships. Something may be gathered, as well, from the apparent fact that reports and notices from various worlds, usually toward the perimeters of the empire, seem to have lapsed at much the same time. This does not, of course, entail that such worlds were destroyed. That seems unlikely for various reasons, for example, first, the prohibitive expenditure of resources which would be necessary for shattering a world and spinning its fragments into its star, or even to scorch its surface and destroy the great majority of, if not the entirety of, its life forms, and secondly, the pointless stupidity of destroying coveted objects. It would be a strange thief who would risk destroying what he intends to steal. This is not to deny that more than one world, by the empire, or others, was destroyed, or sterilized, to avenge a perceived insult or to set into public view an example of the foolishness of rebellion or dissent. On the other hand, a shattered world, or a scarred, and burned, world, would be a dismal, sorry prize for victory, a guerdon scarcely worth seeking in the expensive, dangerous, arduous games of ambitious men. One seeks productive populations, salubrious climates, and rich mines, established industries, green expanses and teeming seas, not ashes and cinders. Accordingly we may suppose that after the clash of fleets and the hammering and extermination of resistances, things might be much the same. Perhaps new ceremonies might be instituted and new oaths required. Indeed, in some cases, the same individuals might be doing much the same thing, only in different liveries and uniforms, under new flags. To be sure, once the mighty web of the empire, with its organization, its massive civil service, its networks of communication, its facilities of enforcement, its report lines leading ultimately to Telnar, built up over millennia, was torn, a thousand worlds would go their thousand ways. Indeed, on many worlds conquerors would come and go, taking worlds, losing worlds, abandoning worlds, seeking new worlds, their engines and ships remembered only in the stories of old men. And on such worlds districts, provinces, towns, and manors multiplied, and order and law would become diversified and local, often anchored to keeps and strongholds, often extending only as far as men could ride, only as far as swords could reach.

Nonetheless it is easy to understand, as it must have begun, the terror of the darkening sky, the ships, so many of them, the fire from the sky, the flames, the sounds and roars, the whines and crashings, the collapsing buildings, the leveling of entire areas, the screaming and running, the loosed, startled animals, the frightened, swarming filchen, birds, blackened, burned, falling to earth, the disruption of commerce, the lack of order, the loss of shelter and heat, the contamination of water, the cessation of traffic on the roads, save for refugees, the guttings and emptying of stores, the lootings, the banditry, the fear of anyone not known, and that of some known.

The storm that was rising over the empire had been long in its brewing. For centuries there had been, here and there, a flash of lightning, far off, a squall, a hint of the rising of wind, a crash of thunder in the distance. These signs were evident, but, we suppose, were commonly ignored. Is that not the way of men? Small objects, a plate, a chair, a table, before one, seem larger than the mountain, so tiny, so far away. A torodont, in the distance, seems smaller than the filch crouching under the table. But the mountain is large, and the torodont is mighty, even far away.

Clearly the empire was threatened. It was under siege. Walls were weakened, and crumbling. Borders were crossed. Strange ships plied familiar skies.

But the vi-cat and the arn bear are dangerous, quite dangerous. One enters their lair only at one’s peril.

This was well known to Abrogastes, the Far-Grasper. He was no more willing, in an era of diminishing resources, where a woman might be exchanged for a cartridge, and a town for a rifle, to risk his Lion Ships than the empire was to risk the imperial cruisers.

Two parameters might be mentioned, one which favored Abrogastes and his sort, and one which did not. First, dissatisfaction with the empire, fear of its power, resentment of its oppression and tyranny, hatred of its taxes and exactions, were resented on many worlds. Indeed, some had seceded long ago from the empire, secessions often ignored by the empire, given the costs of an attempted reclamation, particularly on worlds regarded as less important. Indeed, alien forces were, on many worlds, welcomed as liberators, until the nature of the new chains became clear. This parameter worked out well for Abrogastes, and many like him, for it enabled him to woo and subvert worlds. Indeed, the industrial complexes of various worlds, some surreptitiously and others more openly, armed, supplied, and trained foes of the empire. On such worlds, Abrogastes, and his sort, could move and recruit, particularly amongst barbarian peoples, with impunity. The second parameter, however, worked muchly in favor of the empire. The empire, at least until the Faith Wars, was largely united, whereas those who would threaten, attack, and despoil it, were often foes of one another, as well as of the empire. No core of civilitas, no shared loyalties or traditions, bound them together as allies in a common cause. Indeed, the longevity of the empire was often understood as having been best explained by its skill in pitting its foes against one another.

Many were the entangled strands, political, tribal, economic, social, and ideological, which constituted the restless, tumultuous skein of the times in question. Briefly, to facilitate the understanding of what follows, accept that the threat to the empire posed by Abrogastes, and such kings, was perceived as formidable and perilous. No longer was it a matter of subduing sporadic, localized banditry on the frontiers. Certain individuals, some of royal blood, realized the empire was in danger. One such was Julian, of the Aureliani; another was Iaachus, Arbiter of Protocol, in the court of the boy emperor, Aesilesius; another, in his way, was Sidonicus, Exarch of Telnar, whose particular interests seem to have been more his own than those of either the empire or its foes, from both of whom it seemed he might, by judicious arrangements, advance his own ends.