Death and the Emperor

Book 1 Chapter XVI: His Majesty, Emperor Tinuviel

Such order in the midst of chaos makes me woozy and disoriented. -- American McGee's Alice

The sky was slate grey and a dull drizzle fell over the capital as Kilan prepared for his coronation. He hoped that wasn't an omen. He had quite enough problems as it was. The least important, but at present the most annoying, of those problems was the wardrobe selected for him.

"How am I supposed to walk in this without tripping over it?" Kilan asked, looking in horrified amazement at the mokniris a servant was trying to make him wear. It was a shade of vibrant orange and purple that he knew would look ridiculous on anyone, and on him in particular, but even worse was its length. It was longer than he was tall, so if he wore it, it would trail on the ground like the train of a woman's wedding dress. "I think it would ruin the seriousness of the ceremony if I tripped on my clothes while walking to the altar."

"It is traditional, your Majesty," the servant said, bowing almost double.

Traditional. There was that word again. Kilan suspected that before a week was past, he would come to view the word "traditional" with the same disgust most people reserved for the vilest sins. The traditions of the Carann Empire, it seemed to him, were designed to cause as much trouble as possible for the unlucky Emperor or Empress who had to cope with them.

"Is there no way to shorten it?"

The servant looked to the tailor who had designed it. The tailor did not look pleased at having his creation objected to.

"I suppose we could pin the hems up, at least at the front," he said unwillingly.

"Please do so immediately."

It was on the tip of Kilan's tongue to ask if the tailor could dye it a less garish colour, or at least a colour that would clash less horribly with his blue-silver homon and kist, but he decided that would only complicate matters. It would probably be impossible, anyway. Nothing but soaking it in paint-remover could make that eyesore remotely tasteful.

~~~~

There was a world of difference, Kilan discovered, between being a Prince attending an Emperor's coronation, and being the Emperor going to his coronation. Instead of being someone relatively unimportant, he was suddenly the centre of attention. The people who had watched Marin's coronation had come to watch Kilan's, and thousands of eyes were fixed on him. He felt as if he was being weighed and found wanting. To make it worse, he was alone in the zeim. His parents and siblings followed in the one behind, and Death was nowhere to be seen.

When the procession arrived at the temple and Kilan, with Særnor's help, climbed down from the zeim, he overheard a conversation between two of the soldiers who formed his guard.

"That's the Emperor?" one said to her friend. "He's not much to look at, that's for sure. He's so pale and sickly-looking. And his eyes are so wide he looks terrified!"

"And his clothes!" the other soldier agreed, eyeing with disgust the nightmarish costume Kilan had been forced into. "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that!"

The first soldier nodded. Her voice dropped to a whisper, yet for some reason Kilan could hear her as clearly as if she had shouted. "Some people say he plotted to overthrow his brother, you know; that the scandal was all a lie. Others say we're overdue for a truly mad Emperor -- the last one was over a century ago -- and he'll be one. I mean, who names himself after a bird in a fairy-tale?"

Kilan pretended not to hear, but their words made him furious. So, they thought he was either mad or treasonous, did they? He'd show them! He'd be the best Emperor they'd ever had!