By the time the tremors reached the imperial bedchambers it was already too late. Too late to repair the shattered bastions, too late to raise the mighty satraps and bannermen.
Deep chasms lay proud across the empire. Chasms that smelled like freshly cut stalks of wheat, deeper than the hatred our emperor had for the starving masses, wider than even his galactic chest, ran across the streets leading to the palace, the markets, the walls of his sacred gaushalas. It was too late.
Too late to let the pet ravens loose, skittering and squawking among the public, to declare the tremors a nuisance, just a passing wisp. Too late to make them despise the marching feet. Oh those cracked and sun-baked feet, how they make his masnad wobble! Too late to preach that this holy imperium shall last a thousand years. Those verdant hands that turned dirt into lush ears of corn were reaching the skies.
But whose demonic fists were those? Half of them were women, one-third bore the collars of slavery, one-fourth more ancient than the others. Some were decked in brilliant rainbows, some had splashed crimson, or a daub of yellow over them, while others were in rags. Rags that were far more regal than emperor’s million-dollar robes. They were death-defying spectres marching, singing, smiling, rejoicing. These were plough-wielding savages that even the holy trebuchets and sacred shotguns had failed to kill.
By the time the tremors reached the imperial hole where a heart should have been, it was far too late.
