have been too naïve in our belief in man’s essential goodness,” he said, his voice full of feigned sorrow.
Uni’s insides contracted into a tiny lump. Just the day before, his job at the archive had seemed eternal and unchanging. He had hated the work, and had begged fate to release him from a swamp where he felt he was going nowhere. Now, however, his rock-solid world was about to fall apart in the most shameful and dramatic manner, burying under its ruins his wonderful dreams of a shining future and a splendid career. Suddenly, he wanted to hide somewhere that life and its tribulations would not be able to find him. At the same time, he wanted to throw back his head and cry out to the Sun: why are you punishing me so harshly?
“Forgive me, Enel Margio. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t plan it this way. It was a coincidence. I had a request from one of the Emperor’s advisors, and it needed to be handled quickly. I had to do it. I just had to come in late, you see! They wanted it back today!” Uni felt a hard lump in his throat. If this interview went on much longer, he would break down and weep, further obliterating his already pathetic reputation.
“What? What are you talking about? What advisor?” Enel Margo suddenly lost his dignified bearing and jumped out of his seat. Arms out and mouth agape, he looked like a large cat that had been playing with a mouse when it was suddenly bitten by a snake.
“Manelius Ronko asked me to prepare a very important document,” Uni whispered, vaguely aware that he, perhaps, should not have shared that information. However, there was no other way out. He was in a corner, hemmed in by his own stupidity.
“Manelius Ronko,” Margio repeated. He stroked his chin and took a few steps away from his desk, Now, he looked like a buzzard or a vulture with its feathers ruffled. The vision was both frightening and disgusting. “What kind of document were you supposed to prepare?” the vulture asked, turning sharply toward its prey.
“A report on Virilan. I did write it. Nothing could stop me,” Uni squeaked. He had one last, thin hope of outplaying fate. “What I mean to say is, I did it all because I had to.”
“I’m the one who decides what you have to do, is that clear?” Margio cut him off. “Do you have any proof?”
Uni walked back to his desk on wooden legs. He barely knew what his body was doing. He felt like his mind was in a dark cloud and his body was moved by the commands of others.”
This is the end, flashed through his head when his text – written during a night of drinking – landed in his superior’s hands.
His presentiment did not deceive him. During the minutes he was gone, Margio had been in no less of a heightened emotional state than Uni. He grabbed the scroll and opened it with a gesture that reminded Uni of how an ancient warrior, surrounded by enemies, would have slit his own throat. His eyes ran over the contents. Then he slowly rolled it up and sat back down in his chair. There was cold laughter in his eyes.
Margio leaned back in his chair. “My boy, were you not aware that all such tasks must be approved by the director of the archive? You weren’t?” He paused for effect. “Of course not. You spend more time reading ancient books than you do studying the rules of the institution where you work. Or, more precisely, where you worked,” Margio’s smile took on a snakelike quality. He leaned forward and raised his voice. “You had absolutely no right at all to take this job on over my head!” He was yelling by the time he finished. “I do not care who he is or what his title is. All reports and all materials leave this archive only by my consent!” Margio tossed the scroll on his desk and sharply elbowed the bronze gong hanging next to it. A secretary appeared. “As of today, he no longer works here,” Margio told the man, pointing at Uni in disgust. “Walk him all the way to the exit. Do not let him back in the building. Ever.” He let his eyes drift back to Uni, who was paralyzed. “Get out of here!”
Despite its sprawling size, Enteveria was blessed with a uniquely harmonious architecture. After Norius the Founder declared the establishment of the great Herandian Empire, the old capital was torn down and rebuilt according to a precise, geometric plan. The project was grandiose and required decades of hard work by hundreds of thousands of people, but the effort paid off in the end in the eyes of their grateful descendants.
The old city had been a jumble of stone and wooden houses built up around a fortress that stood on an island in the Fela River, where the king’s palace and the homes of the most important nobles stood. The lords of the new empire gave their subjects a giant metropolis divided into neat, rectangular blocks and zones. The zones were defined by purpose: there was a palace zone, as well as cathedral, residential, craft, trading and amusement zones. No longer a fortress, the Emperor’s palace comprised an entire block of grandiose buildings. The variety of construction materials and the oddly pleasing blend of architectural styles served as an encyclopedia in stone of all the provinces of the vast empire.
When the city was rebuilt, the planners added two new aqueducts and a great cloaca to collect the city’s sewage. Enteveria was full of green gardens and parks, and its residents enjoyed listening to the music of dozens of fountains large and small that played haunting melodies by means of clever hydraulic organs. The capital had the unheard-of luxury of setting aside one-third of its total area for parks and other amusements, instead of housing and manufacturing. It was a giant organism that sucked people in with promises of a carefree life or at least the sense that one was part of the most carefree city in Dashtornis.
Enteveria had two river ports, and its deep, fast-flowing rivers linked it to two different seas. Beamy merchant ships could ride the Fela all the way up to the Sea of Dragons and on, to the barbarian Wasteland and Torgendam in the north. The Fela was a majestic river, and the people of the empire made use of its many tributaries to reach most of the empire’s northern and western provinces.
To the south, the Emperor Lecius had ordered the digging of the Shining Sun Canal, which got its name from the bright flecks of light reflected by its choppy waters. The canal’s waves were not generated by bad weather, but by the host of merchant ships carrying cargo from the Southern Seas. The northern river and its tributaries were, for the most part, the empire’s own inland waterways while the southern routes opened up opportunities for foreign trade. It was the south that brought the empire new goods, new people, new knowledge…and new threats. The religious fanatics of Mustobrim were constantly testing the resolve of the Capotian merchants, who were widely acknowledged to be the best in the business. And it was only the Misty Sea, with its shallow, warm waters and thousands of islands, scattered like pearls, that stood between the empire and the bloodthirsty Arincils, who had made a cult of murder, violence and cruelty. Further to the south was Unguru, a mysterious country of sorcerers who spoke with spirits from the netherworld and could enslave the dead.
In the midst of its bright, attractive, but sometimes horribly dangerous surroundings, the capital of Herandia was the focal point of a centuries-long tradition and order, which was the empire’s chief merit in the eyes of its forty million subjects. A city without walls, Enteveria represented “peace and plenty,” which was the motto of the Herandian ruling house.
Even a foreigner would have had a difficult time getting lost in its streets, which ran straight as an arrow, meeting at right angles in the wide city squares. However, Uni Virando managed to go astray after an hour of wandering aimlessly up and down the streets of smooth Vuravian stone. When he looked up, he had no idea where he was. He did not particularly care. What did it matter if he was lost? He had every reason to believe that his life was effectively over.
“What do I have left?” Uni wondered with a strange sense of detachment. “No job, no position, no personal life, no money, nothing. Just this mortal body with a pile of superfluous knowledge stored in
