10. Epilogue

As Empero slept that night, seemingly unbothered by what he’d done, the Senate called a secret meeting. Without lighting any torches, speaking in whispers, purposely not inviting the clumsy elephants, they discussed their course of action.

In truth, it was not much of a discussion. Tresmo saw them go into the building and come out again before the moon had even moved.

As dawn broke, they had already spread many tablets across the city with their new decision. A decision they were allowed to make because Empero had given the Senate more independence.

To make sure everyone heard it, though, they loudly proclaimed it on the forum too.

“From his moment forward,” yelled a large wolf, “Empero is declared … a public enemy.”

Shock traveled through the crowd of Commonfolk, which here means “those who had wished for this day to come, but hadn’t dared believe it would actually happen”.

Shock traveled through Empero, who was on his way to the forum. He cut off the careless tune he was singing with a harsh discordant tone.

The crowd quickly spotted him further down the street. The Commonfolk ran at him, screaming. Several soldiers tried to get in a surprise attack.

Being a public enemy, dear reader, means anyone is allowed to kill or harm you without consequence. In practice, what the Elite had said, is “we are too cowardly to act against Empero himself, so one of you can do it and we’ll promise not to be angry about it”.

Empero knew this of course. He was smart enough to prepare for the possibility.

He ducked into a side street, leapt through narrow alleys and dark passageways, and arrived at the harbor. The dockworkers hadn’t received the message yet. They merely gave him a formal greeting and prepared his private ship. The sun was shining, the waves were beautiful, and Empero wished he didn’t have to leave.

But the earth tremored from the angry footsteps of Commonfolk chasing him. He could already see their faces in the distance.

He stepped on the ship, checked to make sure it wasn’t a self-collapsing one, and went to untie it from shore.

He paused.

The ship gently rocked back and forth. The waves kept carrying the ship off-shore, but the rope—one end tied to the ship, one end to a wooden pole in the sand—yanked it back. This could continue forever. Ship is pushed away, ship is pulled back. Ship moves in a positive direction, ship moves in a negative direction. Wave after wave after wave …

Empero had his final Eureka moment right here. An inkling about how light energy worked. He knew that all things were made up of tinier things. The faster these vibrated, like the tremors below his feet from the coming stampede, the hotter that object was. But what is vibration? It’s something moving back and forth. Swing this way, swing that way. Go up, down, up, down, really quickly.

This movement was just like waves. No, it created waves. Waves were energy.

He was right: all objects with heat are also emitting light. And that light must be a wave. The faster those particles vibrated, the faster the wave flipped between positive and negative, between up and down. That must be what changes the color of light.

It’s just that, dear reader, most of those colors can’t be seen by regular animal eyes. Some animals are better at it. Humans are quite terrible and only recognize a small range of colors. Gods and demigods saw ALL the colors, which is why their way to view the world would never even remotely resemble how you see it.

He had no time to enjoy this final realization, though.

The angry masses had arrived on the harbor. A brave soldier threw his spear a massive distance. He missed Empero, but punctured his boat.

Empero waved goodbye, tears in his eyes, as he left Amor for good. Being a public enemy, he had no other choice than to exile himself to a famous remote island where he’d meet several other Elite he had sent there over the years …

Empero had left no heir to the throne. Sinnika had positioned himself there, but had died not long after he left. Sinnika received the largest funeral Tresmo had ever seen, with the most people attending, and all of them talking about his wisdom and loyalty.

This meant the Amor Empire was, again, suddenly without a leader. Just as it had been when Gulios Kaisar was murdered, back when it was still the Amor Republic. And roughly the same thing happened as back then: after a brief civil war, one emperor landed on the throne and gave himself even more power—just like Augostos—to be able to clean up Amor and get things done. This would continue for a while, with every emperor after Empero trying to become more of a dictator. They saw Empero’s reign as an example, not as a warning.

A century has passed, Tresmo thought, and we’re right back where we started.

Or where we?

Tresmo was a moral tree—which couldn’t be said for all his Gigant children—and devoted to the truth. Everything he’d personally seen, all those funerals, meetings and more, was absolutely what happened.

The other parts? Tresmo only knew them because they were written on papyrus made from his bark. He only read Sinnika’s writings, as well as those of other philosophers and historians, because their books were slightly magical Tresmo matter.

He could not verify their truth. He could only tell those scenes, that story, as the others told it.

The Lane of Living Torches happened for real, Tresmo could see that of course. But what was the cause? Could an emperor with such good intentions, who had studied the universe, really be so cruel as to set a thousand Krystians on fire?

And so he learned of the final writings by Empero himself, just after he arrived on his remote island.

He wondered where it all went wrong. Had he not been a good emperor? Had he not reacted to every emergency with kindness, generosity and swiftness? Yes, he had been as “infirm” as Klaudios at the start. But when he realized he was being controlled by Gatagrip and Sinnika, he stopped listening to their whispers and made his own decisions.

He’d learned so much, advanced science so much. The fires of Amor had absolutely nothing to do with him—how could they say that? Why would they want to hurt him like that?

Why … why did it play out like this? He didn’t understand. He tried to remember his entire life, but found only small hints at what was to come.

He had never been particularly fond of Sinnika. But he accepted his wisdom and lessons, and had always respected him. Why had his tutor written about their relationship as if they were father and son? Why had he advocated that Gatagrip should be permanently dealt with, when Empero was fine with just exiling her?

The only thing that became clear to Empero, after all that remembering and philosophizing, was how just about everyone he ever knew had only been out to steal his throne.

As he tried to be the light, everyone else had set him—and Amor—on fire.

Yes, dear reader, light and heat always come together. Wherever history talks about someone doing immense good, there are always people waiting in line to turn it all to ash.

Or, maybe, Tresmo thought, it’s the other way around. Wherever there’s fire, there will always be light too. If history was always going to repeat itself, then let this be how it is. For every mad emperor, every injustice, every war, you can find the beings standing up, trying their best and giving everyone hope.

Not long after exiling himself, and making this sad realization, Empero committed suicide.

And so, in the end, was Empero a good emperor? Was the saga of Gatagrip, Sinnika and Empero one that was positive for Amor, or negative? Or was one half of it positive, and one half negative, leading to a neutral emperor? Did Empero actually set Amor on fire, kill innocents, and murder his own mother? Or was this the view of events that suited the Elite best?

History is written by the victors, as they are alive. And by the Elite, as they are the only ones who can read and write.

They cannot be trusted to tell the truth, like you can trust sentient trees. A large dose of common sense and a critical eye seem necessary before making any judgements.

In fact, enraged by history repeating itself over and over, Tresmo managed to apply his magic in an unusual way.

From that day forward, anyone who wrote something on his bark would find that they were unable to tell lies.

And so it was that life continued …