The funny thing about finally getting what you want is that you can't possibly know if it really is what you want - until, of course, you actually get it.
Jaheed's father was kneeling there - broken. Defeated. Powerless. His one biological hand had been reduced to little more than a bloody-bandaged stump by the blade of the Se-dai. This was the most powerful being on Callisto, now reduced to nothing more than a hapless victim. He who had dictated the fates of ten million lives had now lost grip even upon his own.
But even now, even amidst the ruination of his life, of his dynasty - still Duke Jerohd Vell was fixing Jaheed with a searing, hateful glare. A glare that told Jaheed in no uncertain terms that there was nothing his father wanted more than to kill his firstborn right where he stood.
The remains of the Vell Dynasty - Jaheed, his father, his brother Ketteres and his sister Serohn - knelt amidst the ruins of the palace's grand foyer, surrounded on all sides by servants with heads bowed and mouths moving in silent prayer. Before and behind there prowled the Emperor's black-armored Liquidators, their rifle-barrels still glowing from the heat of the recent slaughter. And, to the far end, there stood the Duke's brother, Sain Sahd - his posture rigid and his head turned to face away from the suffering laid out before him. He had not dared meet the eyes of his doomed family.
Kore was somewhere in that sorry lot, Jaheed knew - beaten by Liquidators to the point of near-unconsciousness but alive, nevertheless. The two of them had been dragged here quite unceremoniously by the Emperor's killers after the discovery of the Se-dai's corpse.
The Se-dai. Jaheed turned his head to see the three gilded warriors standing in a strange coven before the blanket-draped corpse of their familiar, their anger somehow displayed clear and palpable through their unmoving stances. The Blessed Executioners discussed amongst themselves in low tones - every word spoken in the strange, guttural language of Phobos, the moon from which their secretive warrior-society hailed.
"They won't kill us, right?" Ketteres was mumbling, shaking his head. Tears were flowing freely down the soft-spoken lad's face. "They can't kill us. We're highborn!"
"That's right," fair-haired Serohn nodded, placing a reassuring hand on her brother's shoulder. "We're going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine." Her eyes flicked back to her elder sibling. "Are you alright, Jaheed?"
But the prostrate Marquess was not listening. Instead he was staring directly up at the ceiling.
The stained-glass ceiling of the grand foyer had long been the centerpiece of a palace that was in many ways more art exhibition than political stronghold. It was a stunning display, carefully crafted over a span of twenty-seven years by the reclusive artisans of the Minban Cluster - a stunning aurora of color in a central nexus that spiraled out across one-hundred-and-twenty different arms that twisted and branched, intersecting and overlapping with one another to create new displays of dazzling hues and tints. It was in many ways the pride of the Vell Dynasty, especially after the deadly famine that had eradicated all life in the Minban Cluster - a monument that statesmen and tourists alike gathered from all corners of the Domain to bear witness to.
Now, it was nothing more than a gaping and jagged entrance, shattered by the Emperor's forces and turned to a point of egress by which the palace might be stormed. There was no great panoply of color - only the featureless black of the night sky and the rippling hum of two dropships hovering just barely out of sight.
Jaheed had not destroyed his family - but he had hoped for it, day and night, for so many long and restless years. And now, finally, here it was.
Jaheed's desire had become reality.
He tasted bile rising in the back of his throat, and it was all he could do not to retch onto that beautiful, bloodsoaked floor.
He could feel his father's eyes burning a hole through the back of his skull as, now, a Liquidator distinguished by three yellow stripes and an over-the-shoulder ceremonial cloak stepped forward with helmet in hand. All Liquidators snapped to immediate attention at once, as did the three Se-dai, and it dawned upon Jaheed that this very minute would be the one crux upon which the entirety of his life would balance.
"Denizens of the Great Domain," the Liquidator intoned, and a deathly hush fell over the room. "You shall stand now before the Master of the known universe. The Grand Architect of the Great Domain. The Celestial Seraphic Empyreal Seventh-Blessed Panoptic God-Emperor Doss Ken Vessholt Tefand Disnal El Errendekes Sen Sorad Volsif, Ninety-Seventh of his name and Seventh-Touched by the Outer Hand. By his voice, your minds shall find understanding." He made a ritual, two-fingered gesture. "By his hand, your souls shall find order." The gesture shifted. "And by his deeds, your hearts shall know terror. Prepare."
And then there came a searing burst of light, a great laser of effervescent white that shone through the jagged corpse of the stained-glass ceiling with an all-encompassing roar of formless sound. So bright was the display that even with his eyelids instinctively clenching shut Jaheed could see it clear as day, etching itself onto the surface of his corneas as he and so many others let out a collective, terrified scream.
Then, the beam vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and thus the foyer was draped now in the stillness and silence of the grave.
After a long moment had passed, Jaheed finally dared to look up - his ears still ringing and his vision still unfocused and blurred. And it was for that reason that it took Jaheed's stunned brain a moment to catch up, to realize who he was looking at - and for his entire body to be overcome with a chill the likes of which he had never, ever felt before.
There were three individuals standing there atop the circle of blacked char left behind by the otherworldly beam. The first was yellow-eyed Ket Sal, a ghost of a smile creeping across his smooth features as he surveyed the carnage before him.
The second was an imperious, towering Se-dai draped in a heavy black cloak, whose armor beneath was painted in brilliant crimson that marked her as Sha-sur - the greatest warrior of the Se-dai. Her visored gaze fell upon Sekhmet's corpse, for a moment - and then at once it snapped back to stare directly forward.
And then there was the third.
He was, all things considered, a relatively short-statured man, one adorned in little finery save for a tight-fitted black robe. His body, from the soles of his feet to the bottom of his lower jaw, was entirely mechanical - all smooth, exquisitely-crafted charcoal-grey cybernetics in perfect imitation of what must have been his former physical form. And in the center of pale-fleshed skull, beneath a crown of slicked-back onyx hair there shone a pair of effervescent emerald eyes.
He was completely and utterly singular. Nowhere in all of creation was there a being quite like the jade-eyed man who stood now before the ruins of the Vell Dynasty.
What gripped all present at once - what forced every one of them to their knees in immediate supplication - was an instinct as old as the relationship between predator and prey. These humans, now reduced to nothing but hapless animals, all understood in an instant that they were prey and that this man was a predator. And thus the innate drive of all living things to survive and to live on drove those present to submission, for what other logical course of action existed in the face of such terrible, overwhelming presence?
The Jade Emperor, Volsif XCVII, looked over his subjects with a dispassionate eye.
None dared move. None dared speak. None dared even draw breath in the presence of the one they knew in their bones to be the master of humankind.
"You were right about Callisto, Ket Sal," the Emperor observed, after what felt like an eternity had passed. "What an abominable stench."
Jaheed was trying and trying and trying but he couldn't get his heartbeat to slow. He just couldn't. It was pounding so urgently in his chest that he felt for certain that it was liable to burst, spilling open within his chest and condemning him to a choking, gurgling death.
He couldn't breathe. He could hardly see. What gripped him now was no mere terror - it was sheer mania!
"I tried to warn you, my Emperor," Ket Sal smiled, bowing graciously. "It is a world of heavy industry, after all. The air here is choked thick with smog and detritus."
"No, my friend," Volsif replied, gently shaking his head - his words coming through at once perfectly smooth and utterly razor-sharp, modulated as they were by a purely mechanical voicebox. His emerald eyes shifted, then, to fix themselves upon the defeated, kneeling figure of Duke Jerohd.
Now, the Jade Emperor was striding forwards with his metal hands clasped behind his back and the red-armored Se-dai marching close by his side, their footsteps locked together in eerie synchronicity. From behind, Ket Sal merely observed, the ghost of a smile on his face growing wider with every passing second.
Slowly, cautiously, Jaheed lifted his head - met the Scion's eyes, for a moment - and then he dared turn to look as the Emperor came to a stop just a half-foot before his father.
"That, Ket Sal," the Jade Emperor declared, dropping gracefully to one knee and bringing his gaze level to the Duke's own, "is the stench of rot, and decay. Of failure and of stagnation. Look at me, Jerohd."
The Duke's eyes did not move from the floor - perhaps out of defiance, or perhaps simply out of fear.
The Emperor's eyes narrowed.
"Look at me," the Emperor commanded, his voice dropping to a low growl, and at once the Duke's head snapped up as though he had been physically struck. Their eyes were locked, now, and slowly the Emperor's mouth curved into a small smile.
"Duke Jerohd Vell," he purred - no greeting, but a simple recitation of fact. "Finally, we meet. You look every bit the man I know you to be." The Jade Emperor rose, now, to his full height, and he stared down at the Duke with open disgust. "A bloated leech upon my Domain."
"I am-" Jerohd started.
"A repulsive little mongrel," the Emperor continued, "empowered by my late father to gorge yourself on what little power he awarded you. And, all the while, Callisto," he gestured broadly, "languishes. It goes to waste. You consume, Duke Jerohd, but you do not produce. You are a thing without value."
To Jaheed's surprise, then, he saw his father straighten - saw his shoulders square, and caught just the briefest glimpse of that old fire burning in Jerohd's belly once more. Fear gave way to seething, impotent rage as the Duke opened his mouth to speak.
"You know," Jerohd began, his voice ragged and dry, "it may surprise you to learn that my grandfather predicted things would end this way. He told me once - on a hazy, languid summer day that I can now only barely recall - that if the Vell Dynasty were ever to meet its end, it would do so only at the hands of some abominable, gibbering fool." His cracked lips twisted into a humorless grin. "And so, here you stand."
"Here I stand," Volsif smiled back, without a hint of irony. "Wise words, indeed - coming from the mouth of the late Duke Jaehar Vell, whose dull-minded decisions and catastrophic mismanagement nearly spelt the end of the Vell Dynasty just two centuries prior. It was your father, Jorkan Vell, who was forced to step in and restore order, was he not?"
"You would study the history of a people you mean to eradicate?" Jerohd scoffed. "I thought the self-professed 'Grand Architect' would have more important matters occupying his mind."
"Oh, my dear Duke," the Emperor chuckled, shaking his head. "You and your family occupy only an infinitesimally small portion of my vast and unerring mind. What you fail to understand - what simple creatures like you will always fail to understand - is that nothing happens, nothing has happened, and nothing ever will happen in my Great Domain without my knowing of it."
"Madman!" Jerohd spat, his smile vanished. "You're nothing more than a pathetic, lowborn little orphan, drunk on power that never, ever should have fallen into your hands to begin with!"
"Ah - you favor my half-brother, do you?" Volsif asked, still wearing that half-smile upon his face. "The Crimson Emir - the man who, even now, wages omnicide upon my Great Domain? Or perhaps your support lies with my half-sister, hmm? Though her supporters are few in number, I am told that they are quite fervent in spirit. Tell me, o wise Duke of Callisto, who would you see sit upon my magnificent throne?"
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"Anyone other than you, Doss," Jerohd snarled, and the Emperor's smile faded at once. There was a blur of motion faster than Jaheed could possibly perceive - and then his brother, Ketteres, slumped forward, the top half of his skull skidding and sliding to a halt some half-dozen meters away and leaving in its wake a trail of blood and brain-matter across the floor. Above his corpse stood the red-armored Se-dai, her blade extended.
"Thank you, Ananzi," the Jade Emperor said pleasantly, inclining his head, to which the Se-dai merely stepped back into position at her master's side. Serohn was sobbing, shaking her little brother's body as though to rouse him from his slumber. Jerohd's head was hanging low, his eyes staring out from between strands of matted hair, his form and spirit cowed in equal measure by the sudden death of his beloved son.
And Jaheed? Well, this was what he had wanted, right? That was what he told himself, over and over again, as tears streaked freely down the sides of his face.
"That name," Volsif said, his hands clasped behind his back once more, "is not for the lips of a low creature like yourself, Jerohd. Thus I take the life of your child as easily as I draw in breath." The Jade Emperor's nose wrinkled, and he turned away.
"I can no longer stand neither the sight nor scent of you," the Emperor declared, as the red Se-dai - Ananzi - took a single step forwards. "The asymmetry of your face, Jerohd - it repulses me. And that grating, atonal voice? I will hear no more. Now, Duke Jerohd, you shall watch as every member of your family dies - and then you, too, shall become nothing more than a particularly unpleasant-looking corpse. Ananzi, if you would?"
Jaheed's eyes went wide.
Now, Duke Jerohd, you shall watch as every member of your family dies
"But we had a deal!" Jaheed cried out, the words ripped from his throat by a flash of momentary panic before his brain could realize and rescind the order.
Every head turned at once, from servant to Liquidator to Scion to Se-dai to highborn - all save for the Emperor, whose back remained turned on the remnants of the Vell Dynasty.
A deafening, pregnant silence reigned. Suddenly, Jaheed was out of breath, panting heavily as fat, glistening orbs of sweat intermingled with the rapidly-drying tears running along the sides of his face.
Slowly, the Emperor's head turned, and Jaheed caught a glimpse of a single effervescent-green eye.
"Jaheed Kesol Gragnad Demnod Vell," the Emperor recited. "I know of you. There was, at one point, some small manner of consternation as to your place in the coming future."
"That's-that's right," Jaheed stammered. Momentum was building - now that he had started, he found himself quite incapable of stopping. The words were flowing free and unburdened. "Ket Sal, he promised me-"
"I promised you nothing, young Marquess," the Scion interjected smoothly, his lips parting to reveal two rows of gleaming-white teeth. "Ours was but a simple conversation."
"No!" Jaheed snapped - rising up onto his elbows, now. His heart was pounding like a drum in his ears. "I gave you the information you needed for your damned Crux - that my father was in contact with the Crimson Emir!"
"You did what?!" Jerohd snarled, his eyes going wide. "You treacherous fucking-"
"Do you truly believe that you were able to uncover anything that our own spies were not?" Ket Sal chuckled, his words dripping with sardonicism. "What could an insignificant speck like you possibly offer the Master of the Known Universe?"
"As I said," the Emperor interjected, and instantly the Scion fell silent, "there was a brief modicum of consideration for your future, Jaheed. But alas, ultimately it is my will that you be erased from my Domain."
All of it - all the death, all the misery, all the suffering - all of it was for nothing! A life of yearning, wasted! A crippled, impotent, powerless fool. That was what Jaheed was and, now that he was going to die, that was what he would always be. Death would freeze his pathetic state like an insect trapped in amber, preserving his failure - his irrelevance - for time everlasting.
He would not accept it. He would not accept it!
"No!" Jaheed snarled again, his features contorting and his words dripping with raw, unfettered fury. "No! I will have my throne! I deserve to have my throne!"
"Deserve?" the Emperor scoffed - and then he let out a short, sharp, barking laugh that stabbed like needles against Jaheed's skin. "I alone determine what one does and does not deserve, boy. Who are you to decide your own-"
"I am Jaheed Vell!" the Marquess roared - daring to interrupt the Emperor, an offense that normally would have seen the young nobleman slain in the blink of an eye. Yet Ananzi stayed her hand - perhaps at the Emperor's silent occipital-implant command. "Who are you to decide my fate?!"
Unfazed, the Emperor merely straightened - and his eyes seemed to glow even brighter now as he spoke.
"I am self-evident," Volsif declared, his words amplified even louder by his mechanical throat. "I am that I am - the span of innumerable multitudes, and of a will so great and immutable as to bring all of mankind to heel before my vision. I am God, Jaheed Vell. You are but a man. And you, like every other living human, are mine."
"I belong only to myself," Jaheed growled. "I am smarter and wiser and more cunning and more ruthless than any other being on this blasted rock, and I have the clarity to see that it is so! Even if I die here today, that throne shall remain mine because it was always mine - no matter what you, or your lying Scion, or my dull-headed bastard of a father say otherwise! I know the truth! I know what I am!"
Jaheed could feel the eyes of his sister and father upon him - but he didn't care. He didn't care about any of them.
"Ha!" the Emperor said at last, clasping his metal hands together. His eyes were blazing. "What delicious arrogance! What venomous, impotent rage! Truly, Ket Sal, is there any sight more magnificent than that of a man who knows himself to be a being of a higher class? Who refuses to denigrate himself to the rest of the idiot herd?"
"The boy is spirited," Ket Sal agreed, after a moment - the smile on his face unchanging but his tone clearly reflecting his annoyance. "But he is a boundless well of ambition, Lord Emperor. He will not be satisfied until he finds himself upon your throne."
"No," Jaheed said quickly, shaking his head - ignoring the Scion entirely and fixing his gaze solely upon the Emperor. "I have seen your face now, my Emperor, and I have heard your voice. I understand now that you are indeed a God - and that no living being could ever hope to rule as you do."
"A wise, if inevitable conclusion," the Emperor replied, smiling faintly. "Tell me, then, Marquess Jaheed - what do you desire? What is the true scope of your ambition?"
Jaheed didn't have to think about it for even a second.
"Duke of Callisto," he declared, his voice booming out over the ravaged foyer. "To prove that I was, am and always will be a far better man than my father ever was."
The Emperor observed him for some time, then, one hand resting upon his chin, and bit by bit Jaheed's courage drained away - slowly but surely leaving him with nothing more than that same raw, abiding terror he had felt before. The true scope of what he had just said and done fell upon him like the weight of the very heavens and he found himself frightened beyond all belief at the sheer depth of his transgressions before the Emperor of the human race.
Then, finally, Volsif spoke.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "You would make for a poor Duke. It is in your nature to crawl, to claw, to fight your way to the top, yes - but yours is an unquiet soul. To actually reach the peak of your ambition would serve only to drive you mad."
"But-" Jaheed started.
"Instead," the Emperor continued, "you shall serve by my side, fighting for your life amongst the hyenas of my Imperial Court. You will listen, and you will learn, and you will obey - and, perhaps, you might one day become one of the Scions whose mouths speak with the Emperor's voice."
"I-"
"Lord Emperor-" Ket Sal started.
"It is my will," the Emperor declared, not looking back at the Scion. "Thus, it is reality."
"That...I..." Jaheed trailed off, struggling to find the words. "Thank you, my Emperor." He bowed his head at once in a gesture of reverence and prostration. "I shall not fail you."
"A bold claim," Volsif scoffed, turning away. "You shall fail me time and time again." Then, he gestured over his shoulder with two fingers. "Ananzi."
Something warm splashed against Jaheed's cheek.
He turned, slowly - and saw his sister bisected neatly in two, her blood spraying wildly as her two halves fell parallel to one another like puppets with cut strings. And behind them he saw his father, his face contorted with otherworldly hate.
"I should have smothered you in the crib!" Jerohd roared, rising to his feet and storming forwards. His eyes were wide, like a rabid dog's, and his mouth was dripping saliva - and on instinct Jaheed reeled back, the old fear rearing its head once more. "Traitor! Abomination! Even on the day you were born, you were looking up at me with-"
A red-gloved hand reached out, grabbed a fistful of the Duke's hair, and with terrifying strength yanked him back onto a waiting onyx-blade.
Jerohd stiffened, shuddered - a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth - and then, after a moment had passed, he went still. And thus Ananzi pulled her weapon free and discarded the dying man like little more than useless offal.
For Jaheed, there was no elation. No euphoria. No sudden surge of victory. There was only the cold, dull reality - his family was dead.
Beside Ket Sal, Sain Sahd wept in bitter silence, and after some moments had passed the Scion's yellow eyes flicked to regard older man.
"Quite a bit of melodrama, no?" Ket Sal observed dryly. "But I suppose it all works out in the end. You and the boy belong to the Jade Emperor, now."
"This is an ugly thing," Sain Sahd replied through gritted teeth, "and it is an ugly creature who derives pleasure from the sight of it. I know you, Ket Sal, and I shall forget neither your face nor your name - nor your words and deeds here today."
"Remember all that you like," Ket Sal chuckled. "Brand this day upon the surface of your mind. It shall serve only to-"
"The matter is concluded," Volsif declared, stepping back towards the charred circle that marked the spot of his arrival. At once, the Scion snapped to attention - and stepped forward now to address all those present.
"You servants may return to your duties," Ket Sal said simply. "You are instructed to bring the palace to an acceptable condition. In six days an Imperial Regent shall arrive to govern Callisto during the interim period of succession. As for you, Jaheed-" the Scion turned his head, and Jaheed saw at once the venom lurking behind those yellow eyes, "a shuttle will arrive tomorrow, bound for Holy Mercury. You will be on it or you will be forgotten."
The Scion looked around - and then, slowly, his lip curled.
"Disgusting place," he muttered, stepping into the circle with the waiting Emperor and Se-dai. And slowly, Sain Sahd moved to join them, meeting Jaheed's eyes one final time before there was another brilliant flash of light, another deafening barrage of sound.
And then they were gone.
Jaheed said not a word as a pair of lobotomite servants hoisted him to his feet, nor did he speak as a dozen other dragged the corpses of his siblings and father away.
Nor did he hold Kore's exhausted, bewildered gaze for more than an instant before he was hauled away.
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"What?" Kore blurted out.
She was laying atop her old bunk in her old quarters - quarters that were now as quiet and still as the grave, as the majority of her fellow servants had been slain. The only light was that of the yellow hue streaming in from the hall - from the doorway in which Jaheed's shadowy figure now loomed, resting atop an old and well-weathered replacement hoverchair.
The air still reeked of death and char, and Kore's body was still wracked with dull agony and overpowering fatigue. All she wanted to do was lay down and close her eyes.
"I said come with me, Kore," Jaheed repeated. She couldn't see his face - but she could hear the delirium in his voice. "All my advisors and guards are dead. You could serve as both - my bodyguard and my attaché."
"Jaheed..." Kore groaned, trying and failing to sit upright. What in the name of the void was he babbling about?
"I've seen you fight," Jaheed continued. "In that regard, your skills are without question. And, as an advisor, you offer to me a valuable alternative perspective. You see things in ways I, a highborn, never could. You-" He paused, and for a moment Kore believed that he might simply turn around and leave. "You saved my life, Kore. Several times now. Whoever you are, whoever you were - it means nothing to me. You are strong, Kore, and I will have dire need of strength on Holy Mercury."
"Jaheed..." Kore muttered, her head collapsing back onto her pillow. "I'm tired...let me...rest..."
"But you'll think on it?" she heard Jaheed's voice press. "My offer?"
"I'll...think..." Kore said. "Just, please..."
And then, before the young Marquess could reply, darkness came racing up to take her. And then she was gone.
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Kore's dreams that night were muddled - brightly-spasming flashes of color that warped and mutated into shapes that were just almost recognizable. It was a hurricane of gibberish information, of light and sensation meaning nothing but streaming by nevertheless at a pace that Kore could not even begin to follow. All she could do was simply exist...and experience it.
And then, right before she woke up, there came a voice that was not a voice:
We are in danger
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When Kore finally came to, she did so not in the comfort of her bed - but instead sitting upright upon a cold, hard metal seat against what could only have been the inside of an armored hovertruck.
Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on either side of her - and filling the vehicle to capacity - were a dozen men and women, armed to the teeth with all manner of laser, disruptor, and slug weaponry, every one of them sporting armored vests with a rough-painted symbol of a clenched fist. The symbol of the Heraldry.
And sitting across from her in his trademark brown trenchcoat, fingers interlaced and a cigarette dangling from between his teeth, was none other than Jiang Tsen.
"She's up," someone was saying - and Tsen leaned forward to look Kore dead in the eyes.
"Kore," he breathed, his cigarette nearly dropping from his mouth. "Thank the void you're alive."