Across the Mooring Sea set Niaggotte, an island nation bearing eight feudal kingdoms, united under one emperor in a reign lasting for sixty-one years. Peace, prosperity, and rational governance had been the norm for three generations. That was about to change.

Tani Sisffora had woken at the call of the rooster. He walked across the pebbled path of his garden to his tea house where in the early dawn he enjoyed organizing his work before entering the palace.

He put logs in the center pit. He filled three lamps with kerosene before he lit them. He gathered his charts, his guide tome, a slide rule for a particular sticky problem in the Luscan district, a fresh ink well, and several plumed pens.

He laid out seven papyrus sheets scratched from top to bottom by the Emperor's advisors with the concerns of generals, princes and administrators throughout Niaggotte. By noon, he would have a report for his emperor.

Tani Sisffora was the court astrologer for Emperor Ran Tullus. He had held the position for twenty-seven years since he succeeded the man who trained him as a young boy onward how to perceive the threads that aligned Heaven and Earth, the Cosmos and the Granulate. The science taught to him by very own father. Just as Tani had taught his own son.

With his pens and equipment in place, Sisffora was ready to prepare his kava tea and a simple breakfast of pastrami, boiled eggs and sweet bread. In the quiet of the early morning there stirred a commotion. Tani went to a window to see what was happening. Flanking Galla Mons, the captain of the Imperial guard, as he crossed through the path garden, were six soldiers. Mons' face was unreadable.

Tani opened the door.

"Captain Mons, I was not expecting to see you so early. What could be so urgent?"

Mons signaled his men with a jerk of his head. Their formation spread out to allow Sisffora room to walk in between them.

"Follow me," the captain commanded.

Sisffora followed behind the captain. When they reach the entrance courtyard they made a sharp leftward turn and marched beneath the cinque-foil ornamentation that girded a tunnel where the emperor held an official court, but it was not the one that contained courtiers, foreign dignitaries, stenographers, and their ilk.

Anyone who reported the business of the court to the kingdoms and beyond was excluded. Whisperers called it the Court of Subterfuge.

The open-air court was walled with espalier trellises framing a sprawl of cherry bearing shrubs. They allowed little light to stream though during day or night. Even as four pitted fires were lit, the throne still set in mid-evening darkness.

Sisffora could only see a feint outline of the Emperor as he sat quiet and still in his throne. Tchellez Tche, the Emperor's advisor and Tani's oldest friend, stood at the throne's side where fire light gleamed along the left side of his face. In the stained contrition of Tche's eyes, he could see only fear.

There were also people standing quietly in a grove beneath the trellises, but Sisffora kept his eyes only forward as expected of an attentive servant of the Emperor's will.

The Emperor spoke, his tone slow and measured.

"I was awakened a short time ago, and told of an horrendous event, an outrageous happening, of which you gave me no warning, Tani. Say you?"

"I know not of what you speak, Your Majesty."

"No? I have just now poured through your most recent reports. There is no mention of it. Why would you hide something so dire, something of such importance from me?"

"Your Majesty, I am at an utter loss at what has you so concerned."

"I'll humor your claim of ignorance, Tani, for this is going nowhere. An hour ago, the Midday Star lit up the night sky like a hot ember from the blazes of Shoal for an entire minute. Before the end of this day there will be nothing but tumult in all of Niaggotte."

"That cannot be, Your Majesty. Settetoile is the rock upon which the Celestial Clock sits."

"Tani, you failed to keep vigil even if you did not outright betray me. Now the very sky is set against us. The gods reject my mandate and so shall the eight kingdoms."

Sisffora's lips quivered as he spoke.

"No, Your Majesty. Let me study this. There must be a rational explanation."

"Protest no more, Tani. My empire is now in ruin, as is everything we built to perfect our society. It will be shaken to the core.

"I see I've let my love for you cloud my greater judgment. You should have been given an honorable retirement years ago, but I grew complacent. Everything seemed to be in perfect symmetry, Heaven and Earth, Cosmos and Granulate."

Emperor Ran Tullus bowed his head with a sad grimace.

"Captain Mons, this ugly business must commence. Tani, your death will at least be quick. My death and those of the men you see before you likely will be torturous. They will sacrifice me, as is custom for a failed emperor, likely in a balefire to appease the gods.

"Given the magnanimity required of my station, I'll grant at least that grace to you, that of a quick death. Though you have doomed me, I am not a sadistic man in return."

With no more word, the emperor stood and walked out of the Court.

Captain Mons led Sisffora to a small grove where the other men gathered. Two soldiers flanked Tani and they forced him to his knees. He heard heavy breathing to his left.

He turned to see his eldest son Hyatt and then Brissle, Sisffora's mathematician, on bent knees beside him.

"Father… what is happening?"

"All that we have known was of nothing," he answered, "there is only chaos, my son."

"I want to tell you father what I learned about the star."

At that moment Captain Mons stepped behind his son. With the greatsword in hand, the Emperor's guard lopped-off Hyatt's head. His body fell forward. His head rolled up against Tani's knees.

Hyatt's eyes fluttered, staring at the sky, before his eyes suddenly widened. There, to remain open. Transfixed utterly, as if to point out something miraculous in the sky.

Tani Sisffora did not want to see his own dismemberment so he shut his eyes tight. However, when he soon felt sharp steel shear through his neck, it jolted his eyes open.

For that moment, he could see the dark sky. Where the Midday Star shown above he could make out what appeared to be a red ember with a gold gleaming arc shaped like a set of multifarious diamond rings entangled together.

His last thought arose with crystal clarity.

We know nothing. And our ignorance is our eternal damnation.