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Assistant: Title: God-Emperor
        Author: LouDiPhilla LouDiPhilla 
        Chapter: 1/2 
        Summary: This story takes place in the lands of Yi Ti from the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. A thousand years before the events of the main series, the yellow dynasty rules the Golden Empire. Chai Nem is a twelve year old prince and next in line to the Dragon's Maw. As the story develops, we come across scheming princes of the one hundred princedoms, rebel smallfolk amassing into a colossal army, and Lovecraftian super beings from the Grey Waste. We meet characters from Leng, the Plains of the Jogos Nhai, Great Moraq, Qarth, Asshai-by-the-Shadow, and the Freehold of Valyria. We experience mind-bending sorcery, cunning political intrigue, and dragons. Let me know what you think.
        Contents: Chapter 1: 1
    

    


  

  
  
    
    1 Fuxi the First Scholar once wrote, “The end is the beginning.” The god-emperors come and go, but always the god-emperor remains, shining down on the Ancient, Glorious, Golden Empire of Yi Ti. So it was in the 653rd year of the yellow dynasty of House Chai of Asabhad.Records of the Grand Scholar “The black man walks my nightmares,” the prince said, shaking off an unbidden chill despite the open window letting in a hot autumn afternoon.“It’s to be expected, Nem,” the eunuch told him with a sad smile. “We have had so many reports from the mainland, it’s a marvel you’re not seeing this Pharaoh in your tea.”“No,” Nem objected. “It’s more than that. I see him in my dreams. Every night. He’s tall and brown, in golden regalia, and he reaches out for me. He reaches out for me to join him, though I never do…” He paused, disquieted by his own words. “But I want to. That’s the queerest thing of all. He promises me things, great things, awesome powers that I can barely comprehend, and he…”Ang put his hands up to calm the young prince. “Nem, think no more of the black man. Excitement is all it is. Excitement, and too much mooncake before bed, I think. That’s all.”“It’s not,” Nem countered. “He’s real. You’ve read the reports yourself. Have there been any new pigeons from the capital?”“Only one,” the eunuch informed him. “From yesterday. Your father was set to sail on this morning’s tide. His Majesty will be here by sundown.”That brightened Nem’s spirits, forgetting all about the Pharaoh. “Tomorrow is my nameday. Father never fails to call on Little Valyria on my nameday.”“Just so,” Ang agreed. It was his favorite expression. “You must be itching to learn what gifts the emperor is bringing you this year.”The prince couldn’t contain a big lip-biting grin “When I turned five, he brought me my very own red elephant. At ten, he emptied the imperial harem and made a man of me. Last year, it was a brand new junk fresh from the shipyards of Asabhad, the fastest in the world. He even took me sailing, but only within sight of land.”Ang rubbed his hands together with a coy smirk. “I wonder what it will be this time? Treasures? Surprises? Magic?”The final word darkened the prince’s mood unexpectedly. “Magic,” he repeated numbly.The eunuch’s brow furrowed at that, concerned. “Your dreams again?” He sighed deeply. “Think nothing of it. The messages are still muddled. It would not shock me a wen if this all turned out to be nothing more than the fishwives’ fancies. Believe that, my love.”Nem was unconvinced. “The Pharaoh has come to Yi Ti,” he breathed dreamily. “And with him, he brings his own gifts. Amazing, amazing gifts.”Ang chuckled warmly. “You seem thrice amazed by the tales yourself, child.” He exhaled. “But I’m certain that’s all they are. Just ask the scholars.”The prince ignored him. He gazed out the garret window and recounted the stories as if the eunuch had not heard them a hundred times over. “The black man calls himself Pharaoh, whatever that means, and he demonstrates his powers to crowds all throughout the empire. South, north, east, it makes no matter. He comes and goes and reappears again in every corner of the realm. In cities, villages, the remotest of farmsteads. And then he speaks. Cryptic words of grey sands and mad gods and onyx castles…” Nem sat up straight for the best part. “Then he reveals his gifts. Shining globes of light burst from his dusky fingertips, and they glow voluminously, brighter than any torch. Lead was given to him on one occasion, and the Pharaoh handed them back chunks of glittering gold. He makes barren women quicken. He makes blind men see. He changes water into the finest vintage of wine. The exhibitions go on and on like that.” He thought he would scream from all the miracles.The eunuch put a hand on the prince’s shoulder to temper his restlessness. “If it’s true,” Ang started. “And I do mean if. If it’s true, then sorcery has at last returned to Yi Ti.”Nem could scarcely believe it. “Not since the days when my forebears flew dragons through the skies a hundred years ago.”“Whatever the case,” Ang continued. “The yellow banners are strong. The Chai dynasty has ruled the Golden Empire for well over six hundred years.” He looked deep into the prince’s dark amethyst eyes. “And Nem, remember, you are next in line.”The prince was always left unsettled by the notion. “But… But what kind of god-emperor will I be?” he asked glumly. “I haven’t even set foot in the empire before. I’ve lived my eleven years on this misty island.” He snorted, shook his head. “Little Valyria, we call it, east of the capital, right across the Yellow Channel, though cut off from the workings of court. How am I supposed to rule if I haven’t learned anything about ruling?”“Such are the ways of a yellow prince,” Ang reminded him. “Your father has reigned from the Dragon’s Maw in Asabhad for twenty-three years, sweetling, and all the preparations for your peaceful ascension have been laid out long before you were even born. You must trust the secretariat’s plans.”Nem supposed so, and he felt a little happy again. “Oh, how I long to see the emperor. If only the winds could blow him here faster, before the sun sets. That way we could ride to Gu’s Lagoon and go fishing, just like we always do.”The eunuch caught the prince’s mind wandering. It wasn’t the first time. “Back to our grooming now, Nem.”He uses my birthname, the prince thought. He always uses my birthname. Small wonder. I have known him my whole life. He looks on me as the son he will never have. “Yes, attendant,” he said dutifully.“Now, lad. What shall you say when His Majesty arrives by way of greeting? A different composition from last year’s, I think. We wouldn’t want things to feel too rote.”Nem thought about that. He wanted to pay reverence to his father, that much was plain, but he also wanted to express the deep love and admiration he felt for him. Something new, he pondered…Suddenly, he had it. “I know what I will do!” he shouted, pleased with himself. “I will say nothing. I will but kowtow to the emperor like all the rest.”Ang’s eyes widened with delight. “Very good choice, my prince.” Ang reserved the title my prince only when Nem had pleased him beyond measure. He was queer like that. “His Majesty will be positively ecstatic.” Then he hesitated, considering. “But when you do finally speak, and only when spoken to, of course, what topics shall we avoid, pray tell?”Nem gnawed on the question for a moment. “He is having problems with the princes, it’s said. Many northerners feel the growing reach of the scholars has gotten out of hand. They urge the throne to curtail the Imperial Monastery’s pretensions.”“Yes,” Ang hummed. “That may flummox the imperial stomach. Best to be steered clear from. And what else?”Nem contemplated the other affairs of the empire of late. “A new rebellion is brewing amongst the smallfolk. The Greenbeards, they call themselves, for their dyed whiskers. They demand an end to the monarchy and my father’s head on a silvered platter.”“Just so,” Ang concurred, rocking back and forth in approval. “Is there aught else?”“There is,” the prince told him. “The Valyrian Freehold.”The eunuch raised a thin girlish eyebrow. “What of it?”“The noblemen of Valyria cry out of an ancient prophecy that will be fulfilled in the Golden Empire. Some Freeholders wish for it to come to pass… Many don’t.”“And what prophecy is that, my darling?”“No man can say,” Nem admitted, uneasy. “At least no YiTishman. The Valyrians keep their secrets well guarded. No outsider knows what their arcane mysteries foretell. All that can be gathered is that the prophecy concerns some promised savior.”The eunuch let out air through his nostrils. “Just so. But let us not trouble your already troubled mind with more sorcery.” He grew stern. “And neither shall you trouble the emperor with such crazed drivel. When he comes, speak not of princes or rebellions… And make no mention of dragons.”Nem laughed. “I won’t. I will do naught but honor my father.”Ang beamed and patted the prince on the head. “Child, I’ve known you since the moment you were born, when the red comet streaked across the stars over Little Valyria, and when the time comes for you to become god-emperor, it will be the proudest day in all my humble life. Omens don’t lie.”A bashful smile came to Nem uninvited, but still, his heart was full of doubts. “What kind of god-emperor will I be?” he said again. He had a habit of repeating it around his beloved eunuch. “Truly, though. I have no skill at combat, the Second Shi proclaims. My abilities in the arts are subpar at best; poetry, brush, music, and the like. And the scholars lament if I will ever be a great mind. I can’t even keep the history of mine own dynasty in my head.”“The scholars ought to glue their flapping gums shut,” Ang scowled, displeased. “If they know what’s good for them. As for the rest, I cannot say. The god-emperor’s role is not the hammering of swords and shields. Neither is it the composing of ballads. He has warriors and courtiers to do those things for him… But a ruler must be wise,” he added gravely. “Do you think you are wise, Nem?”“I’m eleven,” the prince said with a growing sense of anxiety.“Yes, you are,” the eunuch went on. “And tomorrow you will be twelve. Then thirteen. You will grow. You will blossom into the sagest sovereign the Golden Empire has ever known. I’m sure of it.”Nem placed his hand on Ang’s tenderly. “Thank you, attendant.”“Now go,” he instructed. “His Majesty will be here before dusk, and you must be made ready.”The prince jumped up from the table in the eunuch’s garret room. He ran giddily to the oval shaped door. It was a slab of fused black stone, and it was opening before he reached it.In the entryway was the shi, Nem’s master-at-arms and chief bodyguard in the castle; Duke Mon Yaq of the princedom of Fenhong. The man was big and strong, an apt teacher in all things martial and manly. When Yaq saw him, he gave a small bow. “We’d best be off, my prince. The emperor is seldom late.Nem rushed off with his protector down a long black corridor. Burning scones in the shapes of dragons’ claws lined the smooth stone walls.The shi continued. “Yes, Emperor Mamom must be the timeliest ruler the Golden Empire has ever been blessed with, I’d grant. At the Battle off the Coconut Cliffs, our defeat was imminent. That was until your father showed up, as if from nowhere, and drove the Moraqi corsairs back into the sea. And your namedays, too. His Majesty comes every year, summer or winter, rain or shine, right on schedule.”Nem threw his arms up merrily. “And oh, the lavish gifts he gives.”“Riches and wonders, aye,” Yaq allowed. He had been the prince’s defender for three years now, after the last Second Shi was killed in the assassination attempt on Nem’s life…But the boy didn’t like to think of that, so he asked, “Have you heard anything new about the Pharaoh? What will this mean for my father? What will he do if the black man appears in Asabhad?”Yaq grunted, unsure. “You’re full of questions today, aren’t you? Leave it to the eunuch to shatter your mind in all directions. The yellow banners are strong, my prince. I can assure you of that. The First Shi writes from the capital that he would stake his own life on it.”Mayhaps, Nem thought reluctantly, but that didn’t stop the nagging within him as they made their way down a spiraling staircase. “But how can Pa be so certain of it? They say the Pharaoh can do anything. Everything. Who’s to say he can’t kill an emperor?”“Well,” the shi judged. “When His Majesty makes it here to Little Valyria, this black man is welcome to try.” He put a gloved hand on the hilt of his sword. “The emperor is under my protection for a fortnight, so there’ll be no danger, at least for that long.”Nem sniggered. “So humble, Yaq.”They emerged into the beating sunlight. The courtyard’s black flagstones baked mercilessly in the early autumn heat. Nem felt the soles of his feet sizzling through his silk slippers. Little Valyria, he thought, my home. The whole castle was constructed in the style of the palaces of the Valyrian Freehold, fused black stone frozen into the shapes of writhing flames. His ancestor Emperor Chai Duq commanded his summer seat built for his wife, a Valyrian noblewoman, to remind her of the motherland she missed. In those days, and for centuries after, this place had been overrun with the yellow dynasty’s many dragons. House Chai ruled the empire on dragonback for five hundred years, to the awe of millions, to the woe of millions. But no longer, he reflected sadly.As they approached the Twisted Tower where the prince made his royal apartments, the shi looked down on him, said, “We have never discussed your would-be killer.”Nem chewed his lip, his tummy tightening into knots. Why does he bring this up? Why now? “I… I…” he stammered sickly.“I have no cause to trouble you, my prince, but on the morrow, you are twelve, a boy no longer, to hear some tell it. I thought now was as good a time as any to finally broach the subject.”Nem was frightened to learn what the shi might tell him, but he straightened himself as straight as he could, short and scrawny though he was. “What would you say, shi?”Yaq was looking directly ahead in his long strides the prince was struggling to keep pace with. “Have you been told who it was, he who would have shed your lifesblood?”The very concept rankled Nem to no end, but he mustered what courage he could find. “Some catspaw from the kitchens, I’ve gathered. But Ang shields me from the facts, as do the scholars. I know only what I’ve chanced to hear.”The shi grew angry at that. “Some catspaw from the kitchens?” he boomed, incredulous. “Tell it plain, my prince. Have the beige rats truly been so neglectful of your tutelage in the ways of spycraft?”Nem gulped down bitter bile, so queasy he had become of the thought of violence. “No,” was all he could confess.“Then who?” Yaq urged. “Who sent this catspaw from the kitchens, as you name him, to slit the throat of the emperor’s son and heir?”Nem knew. Deep down he knew, but it gave him not a shred of solace. “The Bus of Dongtian.”The shi nodded maniacally. “You had best believe it. The yellow dynasty’s greatest enemy. The cursed men of the northeast steppe. What do you know of those wretched creatures?”Scholar Wing would skin the prince alive if he discovered he had feigned ignorance, so he answered with what he could recall. “It is said they are an evil folk, that they mix their blood with the lizard men of the Lands of the Shrykes and the savages of Bonetown, that they sacrifice newborn babes to cold implaccable demons. They even send their women into battle, draped in fur pelts and iron. A hundred years ago, they bested my kin at the Battle of Qinho, and the empire scarcely recovered. They…” It was hard for him to say. “They killed the last dragons.”“That they did,” Yaq said joylessly. “And if the Second Shi had not been there on that fateful evening, they would have cut your regal head off and stuffed it in a sack.”Nem paled, said nothing.The shi went on blithely. “But now Kan is dead, and I hold the title of Second Shi. I await the day Prince Oz and his Bu bastards try their tricks again. And they will, I can feel it in my bones.”The prince was at a loss for words. He felt like retching there on the steps of his tower. Fortunately, Yaq kept his brooding silence too.They entered and climbed the turnpike steps to Nem’s quarters. The prince left the shi standing sentry outside the oval shaped door. Inside, two more attendants were idling. Gun was grey-eyed and thin, Tot was grey-eyed and fat, both were mutes as well as eunuchs.They undressed him from his soiled pleasure garb and prepared him for the eyes of the emperor. They suited him in the appropriate undergarments, found tunic and jacket and breeches, tied a pair of supple leather boots onto his royal feet. Last came the long glimmering golden robe with the ornate silver scrollwork. The gown swept past his toes, clear across the shiny black floor.As Tot was brushing the padded lapels and Gun was fastening the ivory buttons, a knock rapped at the door.“You may enter,” the prince called, already growing bored of the eunuchs’ fussing.Scholar Wing entered. He was an old bentbacked man in the baggy beige robes of his order. He was the very last person in Nem’s little world he wanted to see. The scholar was mean, vehemently mean, always chiding the boy on his many academic deficiencies. “Are you done here?” the scholar snapped at the attendants in an acid tone.Gun and Tot stood at attention and bobbed their bare heads as one.“About time,” Wing scolded. “Small wonder the emperor only took your tongues when he found you sleeping on your duties the night our prince was almost butchered. He should have taken your heads.”Tot blushed. Gun’s lip quivered.Nem felt pity for the eunuchs, but in truth, he knew the scholar was not far wrong. The two eunuchs were the prince’s sleeping companions, and they had naught but stirred on the night the boy almost lost his life. Dongtian’s catspaw had come in through a secret entrance even Second Shi Kan hadn’t known about. Only at Nem’s plaintive cry did the intrepid bodyguard burst in. His own throat was slashed by the lunging assassin. Kan had his revenge, though, shoving his steel through the bought man’s bowels.“If you’re done, then go,” Wing spat at the attendants.They scurried past the scholar, trembling, and out the door.When they were alone, the scholar’s eyes narrowed on Nem. “Now, you… My prince.” The old man was always grudging with his honors. “All shall go as planned today.”The prince had faced the scholar’s threats since the man was stationed here what seemed like a hundred years ago. Nem was unfazed. “That’s exactly what I wish, Wing. How could you question it?”The scholar grimaced. “We learned men of the Imperial Monastery serve the empire well, show me the man who doubts it. And that is precisely the impression that will be left upon Emperor Mamom when he makes shore… And long after he has sailed away. I will have no ignorance from you, boy. The scholars have taught you what is tantamount to acceptable for your feeble little mind.”“And the emperor will be pleased,” the prince said solemnly. “I know what you and the others have done for me, Wing. Truly, I do. My father will find no cause to doubt the knowledge you have imparted.”The scholar permitted what could have been meant as a smirk. “So be it. I know I don’t have to remind you of what we followers of Fuxi the First Scholar are up against, do I?”No, he doesn’t, Nem thought ruefully. The old man prattled about it whenever the two sat down for their lessons of late. “The princes of the north are calling for your expulsion from the royal palaces and the cities.”“And now the eastern princes as well,” the scholar told him sharply. “It seems the princes of the mountains have joined the princes of the steppes in their abject idiocy. And now there are even some southron princes joining in this unjust outcry. Imagine it, my prince. And all we mean to do is elevate the consciousness of the empire. How can that be wrong, I ask you? For too long, the princedoms of Yi Ti have ruled stupidly, squandered precious resources, sent their commoners into the machine of war that leaves millions obliterated. All we do is for the good of the realm.” Wing was almost weeping now.“I believe that too,” Nem promised him earnestly. “And so does the emperor.”The scholar dried his tears, then looked up at Nem threateningly. “He had best continue believing it, boy,” Wing warned him. “For your whipping boy’s sake.”The prince swallowed sheepishly. Poor Puq. Scholar Wing had brought the boy with him to Little Valyria. He was of an age with Nem, and whenever the prince was lapse in his studies, the island’s executioner would bring out the rod. Not for very much longer, Nem thought intensely, trying to assure himself. Soon, in a few short years, I will be six-and-ten in my own right, and we will see who bears the rod then, you beige rat. Though presently, he said, “Yes, scholar.”“Excellent,” Wing hissed.Nem was imagining beating the scholar’s head bl@@dy against the hard black wall. “Is there anything else?” he asked, wanting to be done with this.“There is,” the old man said. This time his smirk was distinct. “The emperor’s ship is coming into the harbor. The golden sails of Asabhad.”Nem’s heart leapt, though he could have smacked the scholar across the face for keeping the news from him. He spun his head to the window of bubbly leaded glass to see the fiery sun barely westering. “But now?” he blurted out. “So soon? We never expect him before sunset.”“His Majesty is a punctual suzerain,” Wing said. “That has always been the way of it, but surely the autumn winds blew him on hungrily. It matters not. We’re due at the docks forthwith.”Nem wasted no time. He swept past the scholar and rushed down the hall, down the stairs, out into the yard, Yaq hot on his heels. The prince’s piebald horse was auburn and indigo, the same colors as Weirax the Little Dragon who saved the world, and she was waiting bridled and saddled for him. Xu the stableboy handed Nem the reins. He took them with a smile and stroked Weirax’s spotted mane. She wasn’t the swiftest mount to be found in the castle’s stables, neither the hardiest nor the deftest, but she was loyal, just as the Little Dragon had been loyal to Emperor Chai Lar. The ili horse was always braying and champing whenever Nem was close by. He climbed into the saddle.When he looked down, Ang and Yaq were there, gazing up at him. “The rest of us walk,” the eunuch told him. “And remember, Nem. Your regal boots cannot be made to touch the ground, save for when you are in the presence of the emperor himself. Mark that. No dismounting.”“I’ll remember,” the prince promised atop his horse. “But why?”“Tradition, my prince,” Yaq reminded him. “Tradition is what greases the wheels of the mill of empire. Don’t you forget that either.”“I won’t,” Nem swore.They started toward the gates of Little Valyria, styled by the Valyrian builders in a great plume of billowing smoke. Emperor Chai Duq had spared no expense importing a workforce from the Freehold peninsula in the Summer Sea to raise this magical palace. The massive sable portcullis lifted in creaks and spurts, but soon the retinue was passing through. Two columns of horseless guardsmen went first. Then came Nem, attendant and shi at the prince’s sides, the gaggle of fluttering scholars close behind.Nem had not left the castle for a year, exactly one year, since the last time his father returned. Now it was a glorious day for it, but hot, very hot, a sinking yellow-brown sun glaring down on the armor and steel of his protectors ahead of him, and to his flanks. The road they rode was flat and black, snaking down through the smoky hills to the glassy shore of the volcanic island. Far below, Nem could see the Jade Sea, deep jade green and shimmering. On the coast, he spied the fishing village, Rhaenys’s Respite. Once, before Chai Duq, another smaller seaside town stood, paltry and ramshackle, but that legendary emperor burned it to the ground to make way for the Valyrian masons and their expertise. The workmen rebuilt the town in the same black stone as the palace of Little Valyria; pointed black roofs, slanted black buildings, and gridlike streets straight as thrusting spears.And then Nem saw it. And his eyes widened.There at anchor, the emperor’s war galley Juggernaut was being moored to a long black stone quay. The ship was enormous, boasting five hundred oars, with glittering yellow sails billowing lazily. Nem was suddenly filled with an uncontainable sense of adventure. A wild notion broke into his mind. He turned to Ang eagerly. “Do you think His Majesty will take me sailing this time? As his gift? Take me sailing to all lands along the Jade Sea, not just within sight of the island?”“Now, now, child,” the eunuch said, trying to placate him. “You must not impress upon the emperor. I’m certain whatever gifts he has for you will be sufficient.”“But I’m twelve tomorrow,” he countered. “A boy no longer. That’s what Yaq says.”Ang shot the shi a disapproving glance.Yaq paid it no mind. “You should heed less of what I say,” the shi told Nem. “And more of what I do, my prince. Don’t go blathering to His Majesty of what I’ve filled your head with. There will be time enough for adventure when the emperor permits it.”Nem groaned as Weirax continued to clop along the hard path. “But Yaq, we could journey to Fenhong, your princedom, the pink marble city on its pink sandy beach, paradise on earth, just as you always describe it. Think on that, how nice it would be to see your home again.”The shi harrumphed. “It’s not all sunshine and rainbows in Fenhong, my prince, I can promise you, though they aren’t in short supply either, I’ll allow. Fenhong can be a perfidious place for the unwary. Just like everywhere in this realm of vipers, I’d say. Trust not in adventure.”The prince didn’t want to hear it. He wanted to finally leave Little Valyria, he wanted to sail on wings of canvas, he wanted to see this wide, wide world he had heard so much about.Then they were there, coming out of the misty hills, into Daenys’s Respite. The village had the cast of a petrified black inferno. Nem felt that same fire of anticipation in his aching heart. Father is so close, he thought, bouncing with hope.All throughout the well kept streets, the smallfolk came out by the hundreds to hail their prince. They gathered around the royal party, showering them with rice and streamers of half a hundred hues, cheering, cheering, cheering, opening up like a hungry mouth for them, swallowing them whole once they had passed. The people wore their roughspun robes sewn with whatever yellow cloth they could find. It was custom for the commoners to wear yellow in the presence of imperiality.But as Nem cantered through the crowds, he spied others. Off to the sides, standing in a group by a tavern, nine men gathered with not a shred of yellow worn. Green, Nem thought. They wear bright green robes.Suddenly he was afraid. He peered at the green men, but they stood still as statues as the party passed by, glowering directly at the young prince.Greenbeards, he knew, rebels, outlaws, even priest-kings. He looked down at Yaq, stricken, but the shi was already making secret hand signals to the other guards. Then he loosened his sword from its scabbard.“Nothing to fear, Nem,” Ang comforted to his right. “Just a few hungry peasants. Nothing to be concerned with.”That did little allay the prince’s misgivings. Nem sensed danger…“Those men,” he whispered. “They must know the risk they are taking, wearing those colors. They’ll be jailed and questioned and tortured.”“Belief makes men do things reasonable men would only think of, my prince,” Ang told him. “Or so Scholar Wing says. But these green outlaws, they are nothing to spare a thought on. The scholars will handle them. This is treason…” The eunuch paused, ran a hand over his bare head. “Though, treason has its enticements, just as any vice does. Those words are your father’s.”Then they arrived at the bustling wharves. Nem could see Juggernaut clearly now like a fortress on the water amongst the other rocking junks and galleys. Sailors in yellow were crawling about the ship like insects, climbing about the rigging, marching up and down the gangplank, gathering on the black dock below. They were unloading cargo in big boxes and sacks from Leng or Great Moraq or Qarth. Some seamen were forming into orderly lines at the bottom of the plank.When Nem and his retinue came to the foot of the jet pier, Yaq turned to him, hot winds blowing in his long dark hair.. “And now we approach, my prince.”Nem was gripping the reins. Father!“Slowly, regally, my prince,” Ang directed from the boy’s other side. “With all the dignity of one who will someday become…”Nem kicked horseflesh. Weirax reared, screaming. The whole retinue jumped. Then Nem took off at a thundering gallop. He saw the shi leap out for his saddle, looking completely stunned. He heard Ang give a little squeal.It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered to Nem except his boiling emotions to see his father again. The salt spray whipped through his dark bowl-cut hair.He raced past the formed up sailors in a whir. Many of them almost took a dive into the channel. He pulled the reins hard. Weirax bounded high into the air. When she landed, her hooves slid along the slick wet stones. When she finally breaked, Nem was grinning, gazing up the gangplank in front of him expectantly.Aboard the Juggernaut, a man appeared. There on the deck of the war galley, this man walked and the sailors saluted him.Father? Nem hoped. Then the man came closer into view. No. Not Father. Someone else. Instead the man was slimmer than the emperor. Truth be told, the man was stick thin. When he stopped and stood at the gunwale, he stared down at Nem.He squinted and saw. Fain Guo, the imperial admiral. Windswept dark boyish hair, soft suntanned skin. He would have been comely as a boy if he were not an aging man. He wore yellow from head to heel. He started down the plank listlessly, though nimble as a monkey.“Well met, admiral,” Nem called to the man approaching. “Where is the emperor?”Fain Guo put his arms behind his back. Then he went to speak…But by that time, the prince’s entourage was catching up with the prince. Nem and the admiral watched as two dozen guards rushed toward him. Ang was not far behind, huffing and puffing, dishevelled and perspiring. On the other hand, Yaq had a look of absolute murder for Nem. Wing looked more wroth than both of them combined, practically purple.The excitement was dying down in the young prince. There will be hell to pay for my display, he knew. The regret was just now catching up with him too.The lithe imperial admiral paid the dishonor no mind, though. He turned backed to Nem. “My prince, there is much we must speak of,” he told the boy sternly.Suddenly Nem was nervous. “Can’t it wait?” he asked, frantic.He went to dismount.The admiral guffawed. “Stop him!”It happened in a flash. Yellow soldiers stumbled forward. Some reached out for Weirax’s mount, some went for the bridle. A score of them rushed together and dogpiled on the ground beneath the prince’s dangling feet.What is this? he asked himself anxiously. He was aghast, but he seated himself firmly back in the saddle. Then he turned back to Guo. He peered into the man's liquid amber eyes.“Admiral,” Nem said directly. “What is the meaning of this?”Guo cleared his throat. It sounded more like a sob. “We should return to the palace, my prince,” he said gravely. “There’s more safety in that.” He paused, running his tongue along his lips. “Before…” he stammered. “Before I…”“Before you what?” Nem barked. He didn’t want it to be true. Though he needed to know. “I am an imperial prince of the Golden Empire. I will know now. He regretted the words before he said them.“So be it,” the admiral said, coughing back tears from his chiseled cheek. Then Guo threw his arms up in the air. He proclaimed to the crowd. “The god-emperor is dead!” he bellowed. “Long live the god-emperor!”'
User: Summarize the chapter based on the content provided, ensuring to follow the set format and emphasize key aspects within the specified length.
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