My darlings, that was not what I had expected.

Well, well, well.

The Celestial Emperor, once the ruler of all of Seidne, hovered over the hot and steaming mess that had been made of his island. Present he was just the ruler of two thirds of Seidne, and in some ways that last century of fighting over whether anybody could stay independent had been more fun than the five which preceded it.

How much wealth had been poured into this island?

How many opportunities had he given up to build it? And how much worth had been permanently lost in the construction?

The kingdoms to his east had never made the mistake of thinking that he had forgotten about them in the way that the small island which had started the whole rising had. They had spent the thirty years of hiatus digging in ever deeper and deeper.

Fitzuki was such a clever, clever darling.

The many mile circuit of the island on the bottom of the sea floor showed nothing but concrete, rocks, and more shattered concrete.

Ugh.

He’d spent years working on that concrete. Hours and hours figuring out the proper formula that would not decay when kept close to the deep metal, and that could — with iron reinforcement — stand up under the enormous weights and strains involved with moving an object that had a diameter of more than a mile.

Heh, it was fun anyway.

My darlings! This has all been fun. You all had fun, did you not?

The emperor dived once more into the ocean, and he carefully swam, like a dolphin, around a giant ruin.

He found a few spots that leaked poison, but not many.

Well, that was better than it could have been.

If the island had been anchored another mile further out from the bay of Yatamo, rather than falling onto the thin shelf around the island, it would have been scattered over a thousand square miles of the sea bottom as it fell down the mountain that went down and down and down.

Instead, the giant rock and concrete structure had collapsed over the heat producers in the center, trapping all of its poison and heat in it.

The island was still hot enough to boil the water that touched it though. Even five hundred feet down on the seabed where the water was barely warmer than freezing.

The island would stay hot for decades, doing no doubt fascinating and weird things to the ecology of the bay of Kyit. Slowly, ever so slowly it would cool down, and in two or three centuries the whole thing would just be a big rock that caused minor problems with navigation. Probably by then the Yatamo would have decided that they liked it.

The emperor had a couple of scars on his abdomen where nobody could see them except his lovers, and he was inordinately fond of two of them. The ones that ought to have killed him. One on his abdomen that he’d received when he was young, and one higher up into his shoulder from Sesako’s father.

Ah well, ah. But my darlings, is there not a certain beauty in destruction?

Fish swam around, some of them trying to nest in the rocks that were far enough away from the center to be sufficiently cool.

Hello fish.

With a bit of whimsy, the emperor swam a few summersaults. He’d patched up the smaller gaps which leaked poison, and he marked the larger leakages that would require more effort than he could manage in two minutes. They'd be easy for his people to find when he sent Calimpal out to clear them up.

Ah, well.

He looked up at the roof of the water, the open air far above him, and he took a deep breath of the water. His magic kept it from clogging up his lungs, but he pulled the substance of oxygen out. It was almost completely dark this deep down, despite the sun high above.

The emperor felt an odd sort of hesitance.

He suddenly didn’t wish to return to his duties. Even though every duty he had was imposed by himself, either explicitly, or implicitly as the cost of maintaining the empire he had chosen to conquer.

This desire to just stay down here, and just exist was a sort of sensation that he thought he’d banished from his soul many centuries ago. It was rare that he even thought in those times he had not allocated to thought.

That creature.

The patient and accepting eye.

He was not even sure what the message which the dragon had tried to communicate to him was. She’d conveyed a massive set of images, flashes of possible futures — more futures than he wanted to see. Deaths, destructions, more murders. Blood on his hands, blood on the hands of others. Bits of that hybrid Sesako-Isaac.

The outsider speaking, masses of people, training, wars. Blood, blood, blood.

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And well, whatever.

Chances for a glorious future.

Details to be determined.

He wanted to shake like a terrified child.

My darlings, this was not what I expected at all.

The thing was… he still ought to have killed her, and then hunted down the other six.

Ought, ought, ought.

It was actually Kisiko, dying to try to stop him, while the outsider then made that sacrifice moot by not acting. And it was the outsider: Do what you can to make the world a better place. Admit you are human, but something must go to improve the world.

And try to do it in the best, most effective way possible.

He looked at the ruins of his island again.

The deep metal hadn’t been what exploded. Instead, when the throat was blockaded due to destruction from the bombardments, the steam had been caught in the room producing the heat, and the pressure built up, and up, and up until it had to escape somewhere.

Boom.

Enough of a boom to break his island ship, but not enough of a boom to break the whole thing to tiny bits.

And most of the deep metal was still down there, still producing heat.

Ah, well.

Was fun.

He’d had a delightful orgy of war, blood, and war.

It was a delight. But the time for orgies of blood and war was done.

The emperor knew what decision he’d made, and the sooner action was taken the better.

He swam up quickly, coming up the five hundred feet in a half a minute, all the while keeping a careful control on the spells that ensured that the change in pressure did not cause him any ill effect.

He leapt out, like a dolphin, and the water streamed from him. A simple flicker of power — a little spell that every golden core learned as practice, and the water popped away from his skin, as though it were repelled.

He went to the big government palace of the ‘clandom’.

It really looked quite pretty with his banner on it.

Maybe he should require they stick a statue of him somewhere discreet as one of the conditions.

No, my darlings. No.

He’d been asshole enough to the poor Yatamo, and they were valiant foemen, and there was a part of him still who had once been young, full of notions of honor, chivalry and the clash of arms between worthy foemen that demanded he treat them with respect.

But it had not been they who won their war — Fitzuki at least would know it. Sesako as well, and most of their great.

As soon as he settled in the central room, he flung one leg over an arm of the big chair that he was using as a throne and slumped down.

He’d always cultivated a mix of two impressions, in private with those who he gave honor to he was systematically casual, without any great show of formality and form. He claimed to them it was more comfortable to act simply as the first amongst equals.

And then when he dealt in public with those who were distant from the throne, he adopted a grand and imposing ceremony. Then he acted the part of the Celestial Emperor. Perhaps not a god — but perhaps he was a god.

After all these years the act of the Celestial Emperor was neither more nor less comfortable.

Both of these were acts that had grown so ingrained into his habits and nature that he no longer knew who he actually was. Was there any ‘who’ that he had ever really been?

Profound Marthus knelt before him. “I failed my lord in protecting the island as you had commanded strictly.”

“Eh, my darling. Get up dearest. Do get up. No anger and hate today. They launched a clever raid. You chose to send the men off the island?”

“I… I believed they might take the island. And the dragon had offered that the men might flee… it occurred to me that those with only a foundation, or no spark would do little good in the defense. I take responsibility for this choice.”

“Is it yet your view that this choice was the right one? You might have held off Fitzuki’s attack a bit longer if you’d crowded the lip of the volcano with foundations.”

The officer shrugged. “Perhaps I ought to have. But such was not the choice I made”

“I approve of your decisions, and give you honor and praise. Though you would have won far more honor and praise had you won — in the end the position you were given to defend is quite, quite destroyed. Ah, well, my darling.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Collect everything up and make the city ready for the army to return. And send out a message to Calimpal to bring everyone back from the mountains. We’ll pull back the small garrisons as well.”

He flicked a finger and one of the men who stood around him ran up with a sheaf of paper.

How to write this message?

My Darling Fitzuki!

Congratulations upon your fine, fine raid on my once lovely island. A raid for the ages, the culmination of your military career. The great cymbal clash, the drum rumbling, the beautiful echoing sound at the end.

I knew your hand in the design of the campaign when I heard of the mercy shown, the permission given to the defenders to flee, even though the time taken up when they fled must have greatly worsened your odds. That is exactly who I have always known you to be: Fitzuki, a warrior who is so deeply in love with mercy that he will risk the loss of the most vital battle of a war to save the lives of his enemies.

I salute you, and I shall always strive to keep your model before me, my darling, in future wars when once more the blood of men will flow like wine.

There.

Poor Fitzuki, he’d hate that.

He’d send someone with a proper boom boom voice to read the message. Oh yes, my darlings, this whole letter would be read to the whole of the Yatamo army.

Poor Fitzuki, giving him a reputation for mercy that he would really, really not want to have. But at the same time, he would not act in a sufficiently ruthless, brutal and murderous manner simply to get rid of that reputation.

Or maybe he would if it would be useful. Fitzuki was a pragmatic sort.

The emperor had always thought he was a pragmatic sort.

But maybe he wasn’t.

I have determined in my mercy to leave your land alone. Your act of mercy inspired me. And further your dragon gave me a message about possible futures which told me more about a prophecy which had driven my choices. I have determined that matters between me and the dragons of Yatamo are settled. The death of her eye will be a sufficient payment, and all betwixt me and the dragons shall be equal.

As for other matters: I shall abandon your island entirely, except the remains of the vessel which I brought with me and that you sunk.

That shall remain mine forever more, and I demand the right to leave fifty purified cores to guard it, and to ensure that the secrets within remain secrets.

If the clans of Yatamo, and each of the great six cultivators of Yatamo swear solemnly to leave me this fragment of your coast, I shall retreat the rest of my armies and my people from your lands.

Bye-bye. See you later my darlings!

A proper diplomatic tone to the end of the message.

Never be particularly serious.

Core point: Don’t be serious.

And now, he’d have time on the trip back to figure out the rest of his plan. The emperor now accepted that if he clung to power like a limpet it would lead to a disaster eventually. He wasn’t sure how he’d be less limpet like though. First create a council of elders, and then slowly hand over more and more power to them.

That specifically was probably a terrible idea, but in any world where the dragons lived that he saw humans still living, he wasn’t in charge of anything significant.

Ah well. He’d been stuck in a particular pattern of a rut for a great many centuries.

Time for an itsy, bitsy, little bitsy change.

The fact made him deeply unhappy, and part of the emperor’s soul rebelled against this choice to let go of his noble throne.

But in the end, he hadn’t killed the dragons, and allowing the entire world to burn was unacceptable.

Damn, damn, damn.