Representatives. In ivory chairs between the two groups sat three representatives of the capital, Lamora.
The heat and the haze disturbed them all more than they would acknowledge, but they tried to remain calm and deliberate, as befitted an august body.
The heat was intense, a strange heat, brazen, sultry, smoky. The Noble Gatus spoke of feeling the earth tremble the night before, but he was laughed down. Then Utanlio claimed that if one would listen, the sea had a strange sound, as though a great sea serpent growled beneath the waters. He had heard, also, that the tide had not come in as far as usual for the past few days; indeed, each day it had receded a little farther than the day before. The sun, barely outlined, was surrounded by a smoky ring of fire, and the orb itself was molten brass behind the unusual haze.
While awaiting the Empress, the solons went out onto the portico and stared up at the sky. Some shook their heads and looked uneasy, vaguely recalling an ancient prophecy. One day Sati would become weary of the crimes of Atlantis, and that day she would bid the waters of the sea to roll over it, and the living would know it no more. The aristocrat Contalio mentioned the prophecy, but was shouted down with laughter and ridicule.
“Is it possible that superstition still lingers amongst us?” exclaimed the plebeian Marati.
“Religion could not survive without superstition,” said the Senator Tilus, who was also a philosopher of renown.
“Religion!” exclaimed the Senator Vilio. “What religion? We still have its shadow, it is true, but the substance is gone.”
Gatus mockingly asked the question that Salustra asked herself so often. “What is truth?”
This question aroused great mirth, signaling as it did the entrance of the Empress.
At a great blare of trumpets, the councillors hastened back to their places. The bronze doors swung open, and Salustra emerged in her purple-and-white ceremonial robes, with the twelve-pointed crown of Atlantis. She moved with a stately step to her throne, Mahius a step behind.
Before she seated herself, a massive slave, naked except for a loin cloth and sporting pendants of linked gold in his ears, knelt before the Empress holding in his hands a brazier of hot coals. Mahius handed a red silken bag to the Empress. It contained portions of finely sifted earth from each of the Twelve Provinces. The assemblage knelt in conventional reverence as the Empress unfastened the bag and poured the contents upon the hot brazier. Immediately a pungent cloud of smoke leaped from the coals, spreading upward like a startled serpent.
The Empress lifted her hand and began to speak.
Every corner of the chamber rang with the sound of her voice. It was a twice-repeated welcoming, traditional for centuries, giving imperial sanction for the Assembly to sit. Then Mahius rose and hesitantly pointed out that the national treasury needed replenishing. He called for proposals. At this, Zanius, the Noble representing Lamora, rose with a plan, a tax on the private income of the owners of mills, factories, shops and ships.
Salustra listened, frowning. “No,” she said firmly. “That would be inflicting another injustice on the already overburdened middle class. Who would suffer from such a tax? Not the incompetent and shiftless poor; they are beyond such a tax. Not the independently wealthy, for they are not engaged in industry and trade and manufacturing but live off the investments of the past. As it is, we are becoming a nation of paupers, slaves and enormously wealthy aristocrats. Such a condition cannot long endure without a resulting discontent, chaos, revolution and national disaster.”
The subject was closed.
Another Noble confidently rose to lay a petition of a different nature before the Empress, a sweeping law to suppress treason by proclaiming an emergency. Government spies had unearthed widespread plots to overthrow Salustra and create a republic.
Salustra’s lips curled
The heat and the haze disturbed them all more than they would acknowledge, but they tried to remain calm and deliberate, as befitted an august body.
The heat was intense, a strange heat, brazen, sultry, smoky. The Noble Gatus spoke of feeling the earth tremble the night before, but he was laughed down. Then Utanlio claimed that if one would listen, the sea had a strange sound, as though a great sea serpent growled beneath the waters. He had heard, also, that the tide had not come in as far as usual for the past few days; indeed, each day it had receded a little farther than the day before. The sun, barely outlined, was surrounded by a smoky ring of fire, and the orb itself was molten brass behind the unusual haze.
While awaiting the Empress, the solons went out onto the portico and stared up at the sky. Some shook their heads and looked uneasy, vaguely recalling an ancient prophecy. One day Sati would become weary of the crimes of Atlantis, and that day she would bid the waters of the sea to roll over it, and the living would know it no more. The aristocrat Contalio mentioned the prophecy, but was shouted down with laughter and ridicule.
“Is it possible that superstition still lingers amongst us?” exclaimed the plebeian Marati.
“Religion could not survive without superstition,” said the Senator Tilus, who was also a philosopher of renown.
“Religion!” exclaimed the Senator Vilio. “What religion? We still have its shadow, it is true, but the substance is gone.”
Gatus mockingly asked the question that Salustra asked herself so often. “What is truth?”
This question aroused great mirth, signaling as it did the entrance of the Empress.
At a great blare of trumpets, the councillors hastened back to their places. The bronze doors swung open, and Salustra emerged in her purple-and-white ceremonial robes, with the twelve-pointed crown of Atlantis. She moved with a stately step to her throne, Mahius a step behind.
Before she seated herself, a massive slave, naked except for a loin cloth and sporting pendants of linked gold in his ears, knelt before the Empress holding in his hands a brazier of hot coals. Mahius handed a red silken bag to the Empress. It contained portions of finely sifted earth from each of the Twelve Provinces. The assemblage knelt in conventional reverence as the Empress unfastened the bag and poured the contents upon the hot brazier. Immediately a pungent cloud of smoke leaped from the coals, spreading upward like a startled serpent.
The Empress lifted her hand and began to speak.
Every corner of the chamber rang with the sound of her voice. It was a twice-repeated welcoming, traditional for centuries, giving imperial sanction for the Assembly to sit. Then Mahius rose and hesitantly pointed out that the national treasury needed replenishing. He called for proposals. At this, Zanius, the Noble representing Lamora, rose with a plan, a tax on the private income of the owners of mills, factories, shops and ships.
Salustra listened, frowning. “No,” she said firmly. “That would be inflicting another injustice on the already overburdened middle class. Who would suffer from such a tax? Not the incompetent and shiftless poor; they are beyond such a tax. Not the independently wealthy, for they are not engaged in industry and trade and manufacturing but live off the investments of the past. As it is, we are becoming a nation of paupers, slaves and enormously wealthy aristocrats. Such a condition cannot long endure without a resulting discontent, chaos, revolution and national disaster.”
The subject was closed.
Another Noble confidently rose to lay a petition of a different nature before the Empress, a sweeping law to suppress treason by proclaiming an emergency. Government spies had unearthed widespread plots to overthrow Salustra and create a republic.
Salustra’s lips curled
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