Far from Luracayn, in another place, another country, President Shass was not considered a miracle man, nor blessed, nor chosen.
An older, strapping, slightly balding man, Victus Torboul sat alone in his darkened office, hunched over the heavy wooden desk he had come to know so well. Exotic hand weapons and huge murals of great military battles, bathed in the focused light of ceiling-mounted fixtures, surrounded him, silently fueling the inspired pride he felt for those victories. Immense stone portraits of past leaders, carved into the walls millennia before, stared from the shadows with unseeing eyes at the man as he bore the burden of his office.
Mounted on the wall above him, huge silver wings were spread wide, the insignia of the most powerful man in all of Sethii. He had fought hard to gain those wings, and he had fought even harder to keep them.
Torboul had been Sethii’s unquestioned ruler for almost seven decades. Under his leadership, the country’s military had grown stronger and its borders had become more secure than at any time in its history. The wealthy had prospered, bringing him the support necessary for political survival, yet he had gained many enemies as well. Dozens of attempts had been made on his life, both by those who wanted his position and by those who wanted his country—all of them falling short. He had been the Sethiic leader for longer than any other man, and he had built a tremendous political machine around himself in the process. His protection was impeccable, his men among the most loyal on the planet.
That night, Grand Premier Torboul sat looking over the thick pile of documents he would sign in the morning. Things were working well in Sethii, and the last thing he wanted was to have to answer to a single world leader.
“Drosha has chosen him,” some people had insisted, looking on in amazement as the miracle man, via the media, declared that under his leadership the entire globe would thrive.
The former ruler of the neighboring country of Kamir, King Daricis, had died only days before under mysterious circumstances, leaving his underlings to founder in a flood of indecision and fear. The tiny, financially struggling monarchy, suddenly without direction, had bowed to the pressure Luracayn was exerting, giving its support to Paull Shass and his one-world movement. Sethii would not make the same mistake, not while Torboul was in charge of things. His vision for his nation left no room for shared power.
The newly created proclamation that he held before him, once ratified and made law, would ensure that the government of Sethii would continue to function as an independent entity. He had labored on it for months, ever since Shass had intensified his unified-world campaign with persistent innuendo that military “persuasion” of the other nations was not out of the question.
Torboul hoped, despite the audacious man’s bravado, that Sethii’s armed force was such that even the mighty Luracayn would not risk an attack, not when the backlash would be so severe. The last war between the two countries, some three centuries past, had ended in a Sethiic victory and territory gained. That was a great source of pride for the leaders of the smaller nation, and Torboul had no intention of lying down and letting anyone else rule his country, now or ever.
Secure within the walls of his fortress capital of Arcania, Torboul rubbed his tired eyes. He knew that there were those, even within his own government, who had come to support the Shass concept of world unity. Fortunately, they were few, and those loyal to him had pledged their lives to his leadership.
He looked at the massive wood-and-reinforced-steel doors of his office, knowing that just outside, ten heavily armed soldiers stood guard, their weapons at the ready. Beyond them, near the perimeter of the complex, hundreds more kept watch. Torboul suspected Shass of ordering the death of Daricis, and he had stepped up his personal security as a precaution against a similar attempt on his own life. It appeared Daricis had died of a brain aneurysm, but the timing of his death was unsettling and suspicious—and during his many years of Noronian governmental involvement, Torboul had learned one thing above all else: Trust no one and suspect everything.
Here, deep within his extensive underground bunker, no assassin could reach him. No bombing raid, no heat weapon, no shock-charge barrage, no ripstick could touch him. Secure, he rubbed his weary eyes and looked toward the following morning, when his weekly simulight broadcast would announce his decision to keep his nation independent at any cost.
He rose to his feet and stretched, running a hand through his white hair. It had been a long day, and the comfortable bed just down the short hallway was calling to him. Following a nightly ritual, he paused to press a jeweled plate on his desk and closed his eyes, listening to the gentle recorded music that flowed from the speakers. Soaking in the melody, a piece he had enjoyed all his life, he leaned his head back and let the tensions of the day drift from his body. The air from an overhead fen bathed him in its gentle caress.
Opening his eyes as the piece drew to a close, he was surprised to find a joylight hanging high in the air, far across the room, near the door. It pulsed in blues and purples to the beat of the music, slowly rotating as it so gracefully danced. Torboul smiled, delighting in the sight, and could not help but laugh. He had not seen one in years, not since the celebration of his youngest son’s marriage, and he held his hands out in welcome.
“Greetings, my friend,” he spoke. “I trust you are a portent of good things to come, yes?”
The joylight moved closer, all the while maintaining its rhythmic, flowing waltz. The music ended, and Torboul sadly expected the visitor to depart.
It did not. It only stopped moving, as if waiting.
“You want more music?” he asked it, pressing the activator plate again. The melody sounded anew, filling the cold stone room, yet the joylight did not dance. Puzzled, Torboul moved behind his desk and stood waiting.
“Some other music, perhaps?”
Without warning, the joylight blazed angrily with pulsing reds and yellows. A thin, incorporeal pseudopod lanced out, striking Torboul in the chest. He was knocked back into his chair as it burrowed deep into him, not breaking the skin yet entering him all the same, in search of its target. Other, larger tentacles sprang down and held the man motionless, burying his face beneath their smothering embrace, muffling his screams. As he writhed helplessly, his heart was constricted by the crushing grip of the joylight until it could no longer function. The intense pain of cardiac arrest wracked Torboul’s body as his hands spasmodically clutched at the nothingness that pinned him.
Deprived of blood, his brain shut down. The last thing he heard before his ears went deaf was the music he had loved, and the last thing he saw, through plasm-obscured eyes, was the face of his predecessor’s stone likeness as it stood silently by, watching. Then it was over.
His body slumped backward, leaving sightless eyes wide with terror, staring up at the spectral assassin. The next morning he would be found, and his mysterious death would be attributed to natural causes.
A glistening tentacle reached down and touched the disarrayed documents Torboul had so carefully crafted, words meant to inspire all of Sethii toward continued autonomy. They ignited, flashing into ash in seconds, then went cold again. Another gelatinous finger touched a crystalline data-input plate on the desk and wiped the file memory from the building’s datastore, ensuring no cybernetic backup. All that remained of one man’s dream were charred cinders and a faint vestige of smoke.
Its work done, the joylight withdrew its tentacles from the lifeless man and floated higher, pausing for a moment to enjoy the music that still played in the room. It had removed the final obstacle to Paull Shass’ destiny and decided to celebrate that fact in a beautiful, postmortem symphony of blues and greens. Then, as the music ended, it vanished, leaving the guards standing dutifully outside as they protected their leader from any conceivable threat.
His was the best-guarded corpse on Noron.