Prologue
Uncountable Years Ago
The Lord of the Great Vast, Ruler of the Jewel, Seventeen Times Conqueror, and soon to be Twenty three Times Conqueror, stared out the window into the vastness of the cosmos. Little was visible, although hanging against the backdrop of the night sky was a beautiful swirl of stars, lonely in the vast array of nothingness.
When Taglisea came in, she saw her lord staring into the great sky. She paused a moment to prepare herself before stepping forward, deliberately allowing some noise to intrude. Normally, she would never step forward to disturb her lord, but he had called for her and she could not wait. She came to his side, slightly behind him so as to not disturb his view, and simply waited, allowing herself to enjoy the view as well; a view which she was not familiar with but knew intimately since it had been her home for several decades now. The quiet lasted for several moments before her lord disturbed it.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Another jewel.”
“It truly is, my lord.”
Companionable silence lasted for a while more, her lord relaxing into the moment before he finally sighed and turned towards her, “So. Report, my friend.”
“Mission complete, my lord,” Taglisea said as she allowed a subtle smile to come to her lips.
“Complete?”
“Yes.”
“Any complications?”
“None, although they did offer a few unusual exceptions but nothing to ruin its effectiveness.”
“Excellent. When will they enact?”
“The effort will take years as the materials are quite difficult for them to acquire.”
“Take what is most difficult for them from our treasury. Offer it as your tax or gift to the great work.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Return when the great work is finished.”
Taglisea bowed and left quietly.
Almost a decade later, Taglisea returned to report utter success, the work complete and the peoples now hobbled, awaiting only for her lord’s whim to reap as he wished. It was with a sense of completeness that she returned to find her lord staring out the same window at her old home, once again. But this time, she felt some alarm, as her Lord stood bowed, exhaustion readily apparent in his very frame, although the view was identical.
The wait by his side, this time, was significantly longer before he finally sighed and turned to her, his demeanor brusque, “Report.”
“Sire. The great work is finished. They will pose no threat,” Taglisea replied with significantly more poise, business-like and without the warmth of their usual friendship.
“It was effective?”
“As you predicted. Very effective. Your genius is boundless, to think of such a plan.”
The Lord of the Great Vast sighed, his success seemingly not bringing joy, “Of course it’s effective.”
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Taglisea said nothing, uncertainty washing over her even as she saw his depression in the face of his great success. She remained silent for some moments, refusing to move and waited patiently on her lord. After some time, he roused himself and turned to find her there, almost seeming surprised, having forgotten her presence.
“Ah, yes. Taglisea. Excellent. Well done. Return and maintain your post. Send reports every decade.”
Taglisea blinked at this, worry quickly flooding her, “Sire! I…” She stopped abruptly when his eyes narrowed, anger erupting quickly.
His eye’s bored into her before he finally sighed and dropped his head, a hand raising to scrub a forehead in exhausted frustration, “My apologies, Taglisea. You do not deserve this. Please, what have you to say?”
“Sire. I have been there… a long time. I believe my term was complete with the completion of the great work?”
He sighed again, shaking his head as he looked to her with a hint of despair and shock thudded through her chest. He turned away and looked to the blackness of the void once again. “Taglisea, I am sorry. The war goes badly. Our conquest is delayed far longer than we had hoped. I must go to the front; I’ve already been to the front.”
Taglisea gasped when she heard the news, her shock at seeing her lord’s despair morphing to a hint of terror. If even the lord is needed at the front! She said nothing, only looking to him and he continued quietly, not noticing the riot of emotions flashing across her features.
“You must stay. We… we do not know when the conquest will be complete. Return and report every decade, as normal. I will send a replacement as soon as possible. Please.”
Taglisea saw in her lord’s face, for the first time, a vulnerability that left her defenseless, and she finally bowed her head in agreement. Taglisea left shortly after. Returning to her new, and now permanent, home.
Shortly after she left, the Lord of the Great Vast seemed to collapse in on himself, the burden of his duty and despair at his captivity weighed down on him. Of course it worked. It always works. It worked on us!
* * *
Taglisea did her duty, reporting each decade. Years passed, centuries and millennia. She requested a return home every century or so, then soon only every millennium. Finally, she fell to asking simply for leave, but no reply ever returned, her reports vanishing into the void with no reply. She knew her work was needed and even received, each package gone when she returned with the next, but there was no reply of any kind.
Soon, she reached an age where she would likely no longer be able to do her duty and it was only with her blatant description of her age that she finally received a reply: new orders, prepare replacement as heir to your clan.
Her replacement did come, quickly, but after he had been trained and introduced to her contacts, her continued requests for leave or retirement were ignored. She died in her home, at a ripe age for her kind, revered by the people she had spied upon and betrayed.
Millennia passed, and her work continued in her ‘heirs,’ each one a new agent sent to act as the next heir in an ever growing and powerful legacy. But, as is always the case when one mixes power, time, and wealth, corruption quickly destroyed her work as the wealthy nobility of the Great Vast sought any means to desperately hide their precious heirs from the grueling war that now enveloped the entire empire; a war that quickly destroyed the younger generation without care for position or power. Corruption twisted the purpose and soon wealthy and pampered youths found themselves sitting in luxury and precious safety far from the front with little work to do besides a report every decade. A report that soon became more and more superfluous as wealthy fathers and mothers protected their children from their own incompetence.
Of course, few of the nobility were willing to leave their heirs and precious children wasting away in the back end of nowhere and so these pampered youth did their duty to the nation, accomplishing the military tour of duty before returning home quickly. The post quickly filled by another ‘hero’ doing their duty for the Great Vast.
All was well until a particularly lazy and vile youth took the post and splashed her miserable failures for all the public to see, a massive scandal that saw even the Lord of the Great Vast, Ruler of the Jewel, Seventeen Times Conqueror, erupting in volcanic anger. Sweeping reforms saw the post removed from the clutches of the corrupt nobility and it once again fell into obscurity.
The post was filled another eleven times, each time for life, each of the first ten agents retiring from their service able to return home. The last died as the first did, in his foreign home, revered by those he had spied upon; and in as much despair since his last twenty reports remained unread, in their dead drop.
No new agents appeared, the legacy of Tiglisea now a great clan with great influence in a small bundle of stars in the backend of nowhere, a beautiful array of stars, spreading outwards from the center in four beautiful milky arms, swirling around its massive core.
* * *