The Phoenix Darkness (16 page)

“My beloved citizens, I remind you once more
there is hope. That still in this dark hour, in the presence of
such foul treachery at even the highest levels, we can persevere
and prevail. We have but to unite. In unity there is strength,
under the crown there is leadership and common purpose, and
together, standing as one, we are more than a match for our
enemies, both at home and abroad. There is still hope because there
is still time. The vultures, the Rotham fleets, are not yet at our
door. But we must act swiftly to join together or there will soon
come a day when there is not hope because time will have run out.
Rally to me, my honorable countrymen, and I promise never to let
such a fate befall us.

“As I end this broadcast, I am sending a list
of all twenty-seven of the representatives who have gone missing,
the ones you cannot find out about in your news. Search for them;
find them if you can. But know that if they cannot be produced, if
they are never available for new comment or interview and no one
has seen them, then you may trust my word and your good instincts
they have been taken by Caerwyn Martel. Taken and probably killed.
If not killed, then imprisoned. Understand too, this list of
twenty-seven is merely a list of those whom we
know
to have
disappeared. The blackguard may have, and probably has, seized
several more. I urge you to be vigilant and to demand the
truth.

“As ever, I remain your queen and stalwart
defender in all things.”

***

As the broadcast ended, Caerwyn’s staff
members were scurrying to prepare to transmit a broadcast of their
own at his command. Although the queen’s words about him had been
scathing, and her claim he’d been abducting and killing
representatives, ones who’d proven damned filthy traitors, had been
right on the money, her accusations had lacked evidence. She’d made
claims, but without proof, her words, no matter how biting, were
without teeth. Caerwyn knew he need only point that out, then
distract the people with something else, some new scandal to get
them in a tizzy of confusion and fear to cast fresh new doubts upon
the value of the words of their would-be queen, the woman who
promised a Rotham invasion and yet none had appeared. As it
happened, Caerwyn knew just the thing to use against the rebel
queen, and in fact he’d been planning such a move for quite some
time, waiting only for her to open her big fat mouth once again so
he could slam it shut before all of the Empire.

“Ready to broadcast in two,” said the man
directing the people with cameras.

Caerwyn nodded. Normally, he preferred more
respect from those working for him, in fact he demanded it, and to
forget his titles and honorifics when addressing him was tantamount
to forgetting his station as Steward and Guardian of the Empire,
and such an omission required reprimand, even punishment. But in
the rush and bustle of lights, cameras, make-up, staging, and so on
which went into sending out a rush broadcast before all of the
Empire, Caerwyn elected to forgo the formality in favor of making
sure everyone did their jobs right and made him look and sound
better than the queen. She was merely a weak woman, hardly five and
a half feet tall, yet somehow her own staff managed to present her
as this empowered, commanding force that seemed like some kind of
titanium goddess booming her orders and will across the vast
stretches of the Empire with the ease of divine power.

If they can make a weak, pathetic woman
seem like a queen, even a goddess
, thought Caerwyn,
then I
must have them see me as neither a mere king, nor a mere god, but a
king among gods. If she is titanium, then I shall be one of those
high-entropy alloys of several metals, virtually combining all of
their powers to shatter the likes of titanium and all the rest that
stand against me.

Caerwyn took his place standing before the
Imperial throne, a symbol he and his producers liked to use because
it invoked the feelings of power and legitimacy he wanted to
implant into the fickle-minded public, whose weaknesses of thought
required him to steer them, forcefully if necessary, back onto
course, time and again.

He stood tall and the cameras were framed to
subtly remind the Empire he was taller than the rebel queen. His
clothes, his hair, the setting, everything was designed to empower
him and remind the Empire that the rebel queen was really nothing
more than an exiled princess with both an overwhelming sense of
entitlement and a messiah complex.

The man bossing the cameras gave his last
instructions, then looked to Caerwyn and counted down with his
fingers. When he got to one, he pointed and Caerwyn knew he was
live.

“I reach out to you, my children, from the
true seat of our Empire, Capital World, to briefly and candidly
address the falsehoods you have just witnessed. The rebel queen,
who continues her campaign of insurgence and military ambition to
undermine the true government of the Empire, is flat-out lying to
you when she claims her warmongering is done in the interests of
peace and unification. I have said before, and shall say again, the
fastest path to peace and unification is for rebels and traitors to
lay down their arms, disband their insurgent forces, and submit
before the lawful rule of The Assembly and the government of this
Empire. To come before the capital and to beg for mercy. A mercy
that, to those who were misled by the rebel queen’s lies and empty
promises, I am willing to provide.

“Crimes can be forgiven, if they were done
with the mind of an innocent. And no soldier, officer, nor crewman
who follows the queen does so with the understanding he is
participating in a rebellion. Nor does he know he is fueling an
unnecessary and bloody civil war. Such can be forgiven, if they
abandon their criminal ways and return to the fold. So too can the
magistrates be forgiven who have declared for the rebel side,
should they wake from the trance put upon them by the rebel queen’s
lies, and realize by following her they have left the Empire,
rather than joined it. Such is the power of the rebel’s propaganda
machine that she has brainwashed her own allies into believing that
war is peace, and sedition is unity.

“You can hear her raving about it in her own
words how her war against this Empire will somehow lead to peaceful
unification if more warships, weapons, and soldiers join her fight
against this government. Now, how can such a thing be true? She has
pointed to the color black and called it white. But you, my
children, you are too smart for her and for this foolishness. Reach
out also to your friends and family also; do not allow them or
anyone to be deceived! We must be strong and not bow to her tactics
of fearmongering.

“In her latest effort to spread the fear she
so desperately needs to feed her rebellion, she has pointed the
finger at me and slung slanderous accusations upon me which don’t
deserve the dignity of repeating. All I shall say is this: they are
false…patently and obviously false. And, as prudent listeners such
as you will have noticed, the rebel queen gave no evidence, not a
shred of it, to support her claims. She merely invoked words and
more words to support her circular arguments. She spun tales of
conspiracies and spies and crimes and cover-ups; very exciting
things, yes, but they belong in the theaters and story-books, and
wherever else her troubled imagination discovers them.

“You will recall the last time she addressed
us with such a message of great urgency that all the Empire must
hear it, she warned us of imminent attack by a Rotham invasion
fleet so malicious and overwhelming we must all submit to her
reign, bow before her, and band together all our ships under her
command, else we risk imminent annihilation by Rotham attack.

“This will hopefully come as little surprise
to you, we are all still breathing. Free and clear of any Rotham
attack; certainly and blissfully we seem to remain in a rather
profoundly un-annihilated state. So then, where is this attack the
rebel queen promised us;
no
, threatened us with?

“Perhaps you're thinking it hasn’t come yet,
but is still on the way. Not an unreasonable supposition, to the
logical mind that has nonetheless been hoodwinked by the rebel
queen’s propaganda and clever words. But to you I say,
rest
easy
. For there is no attack coming. I have before me the most
up-to-date readings from the Imperial listening posts that keep
vigilant watch over the DMZ, a grid of technology specifically set
in place to alert us of any Rotham aggression.”

Caerwyn picked up the prop printout and
pointed at it. “Here, it even has the time stamp. This was
transmitted less than five minutes ago. Do you know what it says?
All is silent inside the DMZ.” He tossed the prop aside. “That
means there is no Rotham fleet on its way to invade our planets
like the rebel queen has told us. And trust me when I say such a
force does not exist. If it did, she could not know about it. Not
unless these alleged ‘spies’ of hers, who supposedly uncovered a
vast murder conspiracy plot by me without a shred of evidence also
have eyes in Rotham space, and also enjoy making conclusions about
Rotham activities that are also substantiated by exactly zero
evidence.

“You see the pattern here, don’t you? Of
course you do. You’re far more intelligent than the rebel queen
gives you credit for. She has established a pattern of imagining up
threats, then warning us of them, all of us, staring at us with
that stone-cold face of despair she likes to show us, and then
promising us if we only submit to her rule or send her more
soldiers, more guns, more starships, somehow she will protect us
from these threats. Threats that seem to exist only inside her
imagination. She uses fear as a form of control, of manipulation.
And she tries to exert that control upon us, upon you. She tried
again not twenty minutes ago; you heard her yourself!

“I wish I could tell you this was something
she was doing as a mere parlor trick, to try to convince the
weak-minded to join her hopeless and unlawful cause. Certainly
there is an element of that, and I urge you not to be fooled. But
the sad truth goes even deeper than that. For the rebel queen, it
turns out, cannot help what she is doing.” Caerwyn tried very hard
not to smile as he thought of what he was about to say. It was so
delicious, the words tasted like fine wine even before he spoke
them. Only by pausing for breath, and dramatic effect, did he
manage to keep his expression solemn.

“You see, it turns out the rebel queen
actually suffers from mental delusions, and has since she was a
small child. So the ghosts she sees in her own shadows are not just
ploys meant to trick those around her, but rather the poor rebel
queen actually sees those ghosts, or thinks she does, and that’s
how she can tell us, quite sincerely, such ridiculous things as
Rotham invasions and high-profile conspiracy serial murders are
going on right under our noses. I’m even intrigued to see what her
gifted, but very troubled imagination comes up with next.

“How do I know this about her? I’m sure that
is the question you are asking. Because, unlike the rebel queen, I
trust in your intelligence, and that is a very intelligent question
to ask. The answer, it turns out, is simple.

“When we took the Imperial Palace after the
king’s unfortunate death and the rest of the Akira family abandoned
it, we discovered a great many sealed records among the inventory
of the lock boxes in the bomb cellar. Among them were medical
records for all of the Akiran children. But none had more medical
records than the young rebel queen herself, who, as a child, was
diagnosed with her condition and, probably up until recently, had
been receiving treatment, including therapy and strong medication,
to help her manage her paranoid
episodes
. Because of this
discovery, which has only recently come to light, I must seriously
call into question the sanity and state of mind of the rebel queen,
who, perhaps, is not even herself aware of the far reaching effects
of her unlawful, rebellious actions, which have evidently been
coopted to help feed some larger rebel effort led by her advisors.
Men and women of such low cunning they’d take advantage of a
mentally ill girl and put her before cameras and force her to give
speeches that promise the doom of everything we all know and love
unless we give them what they want.

“This may all sound a little bit hard to
believe, but I’m sure if you examine the facts and remember each of
the rebel queen’s claims, you'll see it all adds up. However,
although I trust your intelligence to arrive at the logical
conclusion, I am not the rebel queen and therefore shall not rely
on my words alone, and appearance of given circumstances, to
support my assertions. Rather, I shall supply evidence to prove the
truth of my claims.

“First I shall immediately make available for
download and distribution complete copies of all the medical
records we have so far found. They will be available for anyone to
read and inspect, and I encourage you to do so.”

Many days ago, Caerwyn had the idea to
discredit the rebel queen by using medical expertise to bring into
question her sanity. Since he’d had that idea, he’d immediately
ordered his document experts to come up with such medical records
and had since been informed by them they’d created near-perfect
forgeries and fabrications of such documents, of quality which
should pass even the most rigorous of inspections. So he knew they
were ready to be released.

“Additionally, as soon as I sign off, I'm
sending out a broadcast from Dr. Albert Hameldon, who was the
attending physician to the Akiran children during their early
years. His testimony will elaborate on the exact specifics of the
poor, troubled rebel queen’s precise condition, and will
corroborate everything I have told you today.” Caerwyn again
resisted a smile as he thought of what was next. He had indeed
tracked down the real Dr. Albert Hameldon, who had in fact been,
until his untimely termination, the primary physician for the
Akiran children, just as Caerwyn had claimed. So those facts ought
to be easy for any fact checkers to substantiate. Of course there
had been no such condition affecting young Kalila Akira, all of
that was an utter lie, but fortunately for Caerwyn, Dr. Hameldon
had left his Akiran employers on bad terms and had no love for
them. Additionally, he was a man steeped in gambling debts and
could easily be leveraged into saying anything for the right price.
So long as Caerwyn kept the man happy after his testimony, so he
never recanted, or contradicted himself, or else made him dead,
Caerwyn hadn’t decided which, then Dr. Hameldon was living proof of
the lie Caerwyn so eagerly wanted the Empire to believe.