Although parts of this short story have an almost storybook-like quality, this is an ironic portrait of humanity caught in the long sweep of history. It is about the rise and fall of empire, nuclear war, conquest, archeology and the arrogance of kings, although it can be argued that it is really about the ultimate conqueror: Time.
The Survivor
by Ken Sanes
Once in a far off land there was a sovereign by the name of King
Wisemoron who knew himself to be the king of the ages. And he proved it
by conquering other nations and building a great palace where he housed
his wives. In response, the world was dutifully impressed, and it bowed
down, spreading praise and riches before him as he sat on his golden
throne and took it all in.
But Wisemoron was also a responsible ruler and he shared his riches with
his people, lavishing many fair laws and taxes on them that he devised
for their benefit. He even gave generously of his time, officiating at
public ceremonies so his people could bask in his glory. If the widow
and orphan were not as well cared for as many would have liked, that was
a sacrifice that had to be made for the good of the kingdom.
It was in fact in the performance of his duties that, one fateful day,
King Wisemoron instructed his workers to cut a large stone tablet and
engrave a portrait of him on it, surrounded by images of dates and
roast duck. Words were to be carved on the tablet, as well, just below
the portrait.
Wisemoron’s master craftsman, Cuttywink, took two months to finish the
job, decorating the edges of the tablet with curlicues, zigzags, and
other eye-catching shapes that he knew his sovereign would appreciate.
He then presented the tablet to King Wisemoron who was delighted with
this royal work of art. In fact, he was so pleased, he had it set up on a table at the foot of his
bed so he could look at it when he rose in the morning and when he went
to sleep at night. After the tablet was in place, King Wisemoron held a
meeting with his closest advisors and gave them special instructions on
what he wanted them to do if the unthinkable happened and he should ever
die.
That night, King Wisemoron looked at his engraved image on the stone tablet as it
looked back at him in bed, and then he drifted off to sleep feeling
satisfied. Yes, indeed, it was good to be the king! But King Wisemoron’s
sleep was anything but restful. He tossed and turned fitfully and was
repeatedly awakened by a dream in which he was trapped and suffocating,
and there was no one there to save him. Then, just before dawn, King
Wisemoron woke with a start, bolted upright in bed, pointed to the
tablet, and screamed for his attendants. A moment later, he collapsed
back into bed and, as his attendants scrambled into the room, gathering
around the sovereign whose life their lives revolved around, King
Wisemoron exhaled his last breath.
As his attendants stood there in a state of shock, they saw what they
were convinced was a disturbance in the air over King Wisemoron’s body.
One attendant later said it was like the dark cloud of a miniature
thunderstorm. Another said it looked as if the air had gone wavy, like
the distortion over a fire. But they all agreed that they saw the
disturbance slowly extend itself toward the stone tablet until it made
contact. Then it was as if it was drawn into the tablet and disappeared.
The next day, the most prominent people in the kingdom gathered in the
throne room of the palace to see which of King Wisemoron’s young sons
would be his heir. They had heard stories of strange goings on in the
palace, and no one knew what to expect. Their apprehension increased
when, instead of a new sovereign, they saw a dark curtain pulled around
the throne.
Finally, after a long wait, a royal official entered the throne room. He
stood next to the curtain and said, as was the custom, “The King is
dead.” Then, with a pause for effect, he continued -- “Long live the
King!” -- as two attendants pulled aside the curtain. And there, sitting
on the throne, was the stone tablet that King Wisemoron had asked his
workers to create. Many people took a step back. Some gasped in horror
as they saw the portrait of the dead king staring at them from the
tablet. A king with a heart of stone was one thing. But a stone tablet
for a king was too much to bear.
As people looked on in disbelief, they noticed that two words
were engraved below the portrait: “I’m here.” King Wisemoron, it seems,
had found a way to hold on to his throne and bask in the love of his
subjects forever.
Over the coming years, the late king’s officials carried out his
instructions to the letter. But, much to his subjects’ surprise, nothing
much changed. Like the living king before it, the tablet sat on the
throne as people bowed to it and lavished it with gold and praise. It
attended cabinet meetings on finance and defense, and officiated at
public ceremonies, all with the assistance of the palace’s able
officials, who fared quite well under the new regime.
Then, one overcast morning, an advisor to King Dimsensible in the
kingdom to the east pointed out that having a stone tablet for a
neighbor was a cause for concern. What if King Dimsensible’s own people
began to think they too could get along without a king, the advisor
asked?
“Besides,” he said, “our spies tell us the stone tablet’s armies are
poorly led.”
That afternoon, King Dimsensible held court. “A piece of stone!” he
said, in a deliberately overdramatic voice. Then he made a face and
waved his hands like he was dismissing the stone tablet, as his
attendants and advisors and other toadies laughed uproariously.
A few days later, Dimsensible’s fighting force cut through the stone
tablet’s border defenses and marched into its territory. In a decisive
battle five miles from the palace, the tablet’s army was shattered and
fled into the countryside, where it began pillaging local villages it
was sworn to protect. Meanwhile, Dimsensible’s soldiers rampaged through
the palace, destroying everything they couldn’t carry off.
After the palace was secure, King Dimsensible himself arrived and waited
at the oversized wooden doors at the front. The doors started to creak
open, momentarily got stuck, then finally creaked all the way open for
their new sovereign as Dimsensible and a long train of his advisors,
generals, and favorite wives entered and headed for the throne room.
Moments later, Dimsensible was standing in front of Wisemoron’s tablet,
propped up on the throne, stone cold face to stone cold face. Standing
around Dimsensible were his own people along with the tablet’s advisors
and wives, who had been marched in, bound together with long chains.
Dimsensible was then handed a large mallet and, while his attendants put
the tablet in a horizontal position on the throne and held a spike up to
the engraved face, Dimsensible brought down the mallet with a single
sweep as the tablet cracked in two and fell to the floor.
“The pretender is dead,” his attendants proclaimed in unison as
everyone, including the late tablet’s advisors and wives, congratulated
Dimsensible. “Long live the one and only true king.”
The triumphant monarch then marched out, his head held high, followed by
his applauding subjects.
King Wisemoron was now beside himself -- literally. His tablet was in two
jagged pieces on the floor. But no one entered what was left of his
throne room to see what had become of him, because the ruins of his
palace had been declared off limits by Dimsensible, on pain of death.
And in Dimsensible’s kingdom, death could be very painful. So the late
King Wisemoron’s palace became a waste and fell down around itself as
King Dimsensible ruled over his enlarged kingdom from a grand new palace
he built in the east, full of imported cedar and marble, with luxurious
fabrics that he paid for with his plunder.
As the years passed, the ceiling in Wisemoron’s throne room began to
collapse, slowly at first, with bits and pieces falling off, then all at
once, pressing in on the two fragments of the tablet. One of the
fragments cried out plaintively “I’m here.” But no one heard and no one
came to rescue it.
Meanwhile, Dimsensible’s great grandson enlarged the family empire by
conquering lands even further to the west. And his son, Dimsensible the
Horrible, extended the empire to the edges of the known world. The
decadence in Dimsensible’s palaces ran rampant, with feasts of stuffed
duck and candied swine, belly dancers jingling their bells, and vast
topiary gardens tenderly shaped by the loving hands of eunuchs and
tended by armies of slaves. Yes, indeed, it was good to be the king.
But over at King Wisemoron’s palace, all was darkness. The centuries
passed and the earth covered the room where a stone tablet had presumed
to sit on the throne, while the two fragments were pressed deeper into
the earth. In the area around them, there was no noise and nothing moved
except for an occasional burrowing rodent that failed to find anything
of interest and continued on its way.
In the blink of an eye, a thousand years passed. Then another. And part
of another.
Finally, one day there were strange sounds, and a lot of movement.
Suddenly, there was a shaft of light and fresh air for the first time
in, well, a very long time. Small shovels pushed their way in from above
and carried away dirt and debris. Then there was a clanging sound as a
shovel hit a hard piece of stone.
“It looks like a tablet of some sort” someone said, as one of the
fragments was lifted out of the dirt.
“Show it to the chief archeologist” the person standing next to him
responded.
Soon there were a dozen people crowding around the lower piece of the
stone tablet, which had words engraved in an ancient language that no
one could read.
A man dressed in khaki colored shorts and a wide brimmed hat stepped
forward and took the fragment in his hand.
“We may be digging up the Royal Palace of King Nadachunk,” he said.
“Or it could be -- ” said a young woman, stepping forward, holding a
small hand-shovel. “It could be the long lost palace of King Wisemoron.”
“But that means this might be -- ” the man in the hat started to say.
“That's right,” the woman responded. “This just might be a piece of the
legendary royal tablet that is said to have been the eternal resting
place for Wisemoron’s soul.”
Actually, that last statement was more like an announcement to the large
group of archeologists and other workers who had gathered around the
fragment to follow what was taking place. Now there was applause and a
great deal of excitement as a lot of people spoke at once.
Then the man in the wide brimmed hat spoke again but with a different tone then
he had
used before.
“Hail to Gullibania,” he said loudly. “Hail to our nation and this great
new discovery, which demonstrates once again that we are descended from
kings and heroes!”
With that there was more applause although it wasn't quite as
enthusiastic as before.
Then there was more digging, which was carried out very delicately. The
soil was sifted through screens, and pieces of debris were removed from
the earth with brushes and fine hand tools, then examined and placed to
one side. Soon, a second piece of the stone tablet was dug out. The
female archeologist held it up over her head to show it to the assembled crowd
of workers, who were following everything with rapt attention. It was a
fragment of the upper part of the tablet although it only showed half of
an engraved face, surrounded by what looked to the archeologists like
images of dates and dishes of cooked poultry, probably duck, with an
outer edge of curlicues, zigzags, and other decorative shapes.
The archeologists dug through the night and into the next day but that
was all they found -- the bottom third of the tablet with words on it in
a language no one could read and the left side of a face of what
everyone now believed was the legendary King Wisemoron. They expanded
their search but without success. The rest of the tablet had apparently
disappeared into the sands of Time.
When the news media in Gullibania revealed that two pieces of the
legendary Wisemoron tablet had been unearthed -- and just a hundred
miles from the capital of New Defunctum City -- there was an uproar. Many
people were superstitious and believed that it really did house the late
sovereign’s soul. To satisfy public demand, television covered the story
for weeks with nonstop updates even though there really wasn’t anything
to update after the initial announcement of the discovery.
“And here is reporter Egan Morgan Killgerhorgan with the latest update
on the tablet,” a TV announcer said, as bold letters on the bottom half
of the screen blared out: “Breaking: Are Fragments Famous Royal?”
“Thank you,” said Egan Morgan Killgerhorgan, “We have now confirmed that
a member of the presidential commission appointed to look into this has
definitely confirmed that this is definitely Wisemoron’s tablet,” she
said.
“Now, they confirmed that yesterday, didn’t they,” asked the TV
announcer, who had a reputation for being somewhat crusty in his
remarks.
“Yesterday it was only one definitely,” Egan Morgan Killgerhorgan
replied.
“There you have it,” said the announcer, without a hint of sarcasm, “a
double definitely from an unnamed commission member who says this is
definitely –- definitely -- Wisemoron’s tablet.”
Behind him was a photograph of the two fragments, one with half a face
and one with the lettering no one could read, that said, “I’m here.”
People may not have known what it was saying, but they were certainly
answering its call.
The fragments were now set up in the east wing of the presidential
palace in the capital of New Defunctum City. The line of people waiting
to see them wound its way through the surrounding courtyards, gardens,
and parks, clear out to the tree-lined boulevard that encircled the
presidential palace. What was left of King Wisemoron was a star! And the
lines kept coming as hundreds of thousands of people passed through. The
guards were even forced to move the display back away from the crowd
because people kept breaking out of the line and touching the fragments
for luck.
Then it was revealed that a famous singing star wanted to leave her
fortune to the maternal grandmother of her late Chihuahua, and the media
rushed off to get the story -- and other stories of similar import.
As the crowds began to thin, the two fragments were moved to the Museum
of Antiquities in downtown New Defunctum City. At first they held pride
of place in the front gallery. Then they were moved back, and moved
again, until they came to rest in the Wisemoron/Dimsensible Gallery of
Ancient Art. The tablet was still crying out “I’m here,” but no one ever
figured out what it was saying. Some people were interested but there
were no great numbers like before.
The years turned into decades. The decades became a century. The nation
of Gullibania that housed Wisemoron’s fragments was now the leading member of the
Northeastern Federation of Free Nations. And the Wisemoron fragments had
long since been moved to the Museum of Additional Antiquities in the
outskirts of a provincial city, where they occupied a high shelf built
into the wall, out of reach of visitors who still tried to touch them
for luck.
But no one was thinking about ancient art. There were tensions with the
Tri-Continent Alliance, which had accused the Northeastern Federation of
Free Nations of usurping oil drilling rights. This was an issue of vital
importance to both sides since oil was scarce. In fact, most kinds of
energy were scarce, which made it difficult for either the Alliance or
the Federation to achieve the level of material abundance their people
yearned for. Most fossil fuels had been used up in the distant past, in
an age that was ancient and largely unknown even in Wisemoron’s time.
And nuclear reactors had to be abandoned as a source of energy after
they kept suffering technical failures and meltdowns. The
Northeastern
Federation
maintained only a handful, far away from the cities, to produce the
nuclear weapons that had successfully deterred an attack for the last
few decades.
Then a warship from the Tri-Continent Alliance fired on a warship of the
Northeastern Federation, and sank it, with more than a hundred sailors
dead. The rhetoric heated up. The Alliance threatened war. Generals in
the Northeastern Federation recommended a preemptive nuclear strike. But
the president refused.
“For every city we hit, they will counter-attack against one of our
own,” the president said. “We might just as well target ourselves.”
Meanwhile, in the Northeastern
Federation's Museum of Additional
Antiquities, a little girl was
staring up at the Wisemoron fragments.
“Mommy, mommy, the tablet spoke to me,” she screamed in a
small voice as she turned and ran toward her mother. But
as she ran she was very careful, because her
mother had dressed her up like an adult attending a great ball for this
outing to the museum, with a long dress and hair piled on top of her
head. “Mommy, the tablet told me, 'Go there,'” the little girl said as
she wrapped her arms around her mother.
The next day, newspapers throughout the Northeastern Federation carried
the story. As one oversized headline put it: “Wisemoron Fragments Tell
Little Girl We Should Take the War to the Alliance Before It Takes the
War To Us!”
Then a well-known psychic announced that he had been visited by
Wisemoron’s spirit in his sleep, and it had given him a message.
“What was the message” a TV reporter asked, as millions of viewers,
their eyes glued to their television screens, waited nervously for an
answer.
“The message was one word,” the psychic replied. “Kill.”
Soon newspapers and the TV news throughout the Northeastern Federation were filled with reports of people
receiving hidden messages from the Wisemoron fragments. The mysterious
messages were discovered in vertical and horizontal word combinations in
crossword puzzles; in the unexpected arrangement of letters in alphabet
soup; and even in the barking of dogs at night, which sounded to their
owners like a rough form of human speech.
“War! War! War!” the dogs barked, as otherwise peaceful neighborhoods
were disrupted, and people tried unsuccessfully to get some sleep.
There were also a few cat owners who claimed they heard their pets
purring for peace. But they received less attention from the media.
Like many civilians, the generals of the Northeastern Federation were superstitious, and they
definitely preferred dogs to cats. They also knew how to read
intelligence reports, which revealed that the Northeastern Federation
would only last a year at most against the larger, richer, and better
equipped forces of the Alliance. Then the Alliance sank two more
Federation ships while the president of the Federation pleaded for
peace.
It was late at night when the generals removed the president of the
Northeastern Federation from his position, and advised him to stay at
his vacation home for the next few days. The next morning was a brisk
fall day. The temperature was unseasonably cool. Nuclear missiles from
the Northeastern Federation lifted off from bases in eight locations, traveling cleanly through the air,
as they headed toward Alliance
territory. The Alliance responded,
launching its own
missiles, in an attack on the Northeastern Federation.
Then there was a change in the weather.
The Museum of Additional Antiquities didn’t open that day, or any other
day after that. Late in the morning there was a loud noise coming from
somewhere outside the building. Then the lights went out and the air
conditioners stopped their perpetual hum. Once again the fragments were
in darkness as they sat high on a shelf in a windowless gallery.
Meanwhile, outside the museum, day turned to night, and night to day.
Full moons followed full moons. But still no one came to see the
fragments. Then there were a number of cold winters that turned into a decade
of ice. In fact, the entire century was colder than usual. And the
millennium after that was only a little better, as the ruins of
cities that littered the landscape were blanketed with snow. Meanwhile,
in the dark gallery that housed Wisemoron’s tablet, openings started to
appear in one of the walls, near the floor. Small animals with thick fur coats
came in through the openings, looking for protection from inclement
weather, and from larger animals prowling through the snow.
Then one spring the sun came out and, lo and behold, it was a warm day.
Not long after, water started to
trickle in through the openings in the gallery wall. Soon there was a creek inside, and a
small pond formed in the dark cavernous room. Then the ceiling
collapsed, followed by entire sections of wall, letting in a flood of
light and a view of both the landscape and sky. Greenery began to grow
in what was left of the gallery. Small fish appeared in the pond. Snakes
slithered between vines and underbrush. Frogs hopped on what was left of
the museum statuary. The idealized statue of two lovers caught in an
embrace was a favorite place for the lizards because there were so many
nooks and crannies for them to hide in. Over time, the Alliance of Frogs
competed with the Federation of Lizards for the best spots.
One day there was a loud noise as the lower fragment with the words
engraved on it fell from its high shelf into the water, face down, and
landed on a rock. It
made a nice place to sit for the frogs.
Then, early one morning, a man and a boy came wading in to the shallow
pond in the ruins of the gallery. The man was about five feet tall. He
had dark wavy hair and a short face, with features that looked like they
had been pushed together. The boy was about four feet tall with a
smaller version of the same face. They each wore sandals and a crudely
woven tunic that covered them from the shoulders down to somewhere below
the surface of the water.
The boy pointed to the remaining fragment of the stone tablet high on
the gallery shelf. It had an engraving of half a man’s face on it, and
pictures of what looked like foods they had never seen before. The man climbed up and
brought it down, and they stared at the fragment with the engraved
rendering of the long-faced ancient, without realizing just how ancient
it really was.
They didn’t know there was another fragment of the same stone tablet in
the water, with words on it. But they wouldn’t have understood it
anyway. They had seen writing before but none of their people could
figure out why the ancients, with all their magical powers, had devoted
so much time to creating those intricate designs.
When the man and boy got back to their village, people were fascinated
by the fragment they brought with them. Many were convinced it housed
the soul of an old shaman who had died the previous summer.
So they put the fragment on an alter in their small mud brick temple,
and everyone bowed down to it. One worshipper even told the others that,
just for a moment, he was sure he saw the half of an engraved face
smile.
Unfortunately, by now, most of the stone tablet was missing since
additional pieces around the edges had broken off when it was carried
back to the village. And since the bottom half
with the words on it had been left behind, it could no longer tell
people, “I’m here.” But, once again, what was left of Wisemoron’s tablet
was the center of attention.
Standing before the assembled worshippers of the village, the man who
had discovered the fragment pressed his ear against the engraved surface
of the stone. Then, interpreting the thoughts of the fragment for the
assembled worshippers, he told them that their new god was very pleased
and was ready to bestow its benefits, as it had done for so many others
before.