＃５０

I looked across the sand, and saw that it was mine, and that it yet was not enough.

Beyond the horizon — my viziers assured me — were treacherous peaks of ice and wound-deep rivers that flowed from the gods themselves. Those were now mine, too. The rivers held banks as fertile as any in existence, and would soon cradle a city to rival any above in heaven. I would build a palace there, and it would serve to feed my army as we continued our march west.

Beyond the peaks…

I closed my eyes — saw the sun god through translucent eyelids — felt the wind whip sand grains cross my cheeks.

Beyond the peaks, I saw lands I could not have dreamed of: impossible colours, shattered skies, cypress trees reaching to the sky then curving back again and burrowing underground to find subterranean water. I saw strange peoples — not dark, not light, but shifting and flickering with their intentions. I saw demons with wicked swords coated in flames that could not die, and heard their asperse mutterings travel across the rivers to me.

Why, then, should all this not be mine, too?

Tell me, I demanded of my viziers. If these lands must not be mine alone, then where precisely would you end them? At which peak? By which river? On what granule of sand must our empire end — and if it exists, then bring it to me!

There must be no end, Shah, my viziers would respond dutifully. Your empire shall extend to the end of all lands, to reach the heavens themselves — and even then, you shall share territory with the gods themselves; they shall offer you wine of all kinds in the evening, and ask your advice on divine matters, and grant you rulership of all men past and present. It is destined, Shah.

I knew that they answered in this fashion out of duty and subservience. Fear, too, which pleased me. But even as I asked, I knew there could be no other answer — it was inconceivable that the divine winds that had already brought all tribes under my own, and delivered so many heads to my executioner’s axe, should suddenly sputter and fail as I led my people from the desert.

I saw all this with certainty, saw that those dreamless lands of demons would be mine forevermore…

And this would be enough.