It was a crisp, sharp morning in Tara, the capital city of the Kingdom of Belthar.

     The two suns shone steadily out if the cloudless blue sky. A small comet poked its head above the hilly and uneven eastern horizon and the occasional tiny meteor streaked its way across the sky, ignored by the citizens bustling through the icy streets, their breaths misting the air in front of them to form clouds of frozen condensation that were carried away by the light breeze. A light sprinkling of snow crunched under their feet, and a group of children were scraping their blue and frozen hands along the brick walls and the few untrampled inches along the edges of the pavements to gather enough snow to make decent sized snowballs. A few coaches made their way slowly along the centres of the wide avenues, the horses picking their way carefully along the frozen ground, and flocks of birds, their feathers puffed up against the cold, gathered greedily around an old woman sitting on one of the park benches, happily throwing out carefully cut cubes of bread.

     The King smirked with mild contempt as he watched the scene through the wall sized scrying mirrors hanging in one of the private rooms of his palace. He loved to spy on his people as they bustled about their lives. Working, eating, sleeping. As totally unaware of his surveillance as a colony of insects under the gaze of a naturalist. Owned by him. His to do with as he chose. He could send out his soldiers to arrest any of them he chose and have them thrown in the palace dungeons. He didn't have to make any specific charges or present any evidence that they'd done anything wrong. His word was enough. It gave him an exhilarating feeling of power that sometimes left him feeling almost drunk, that sometimes made him want to just cry out in delight. He loved being King! He loved how good it made him feel. He loved being in control, of being able to order things the way he wanted them. There were no limits to his power...

     Except, that wasn't quite true, was it? There were limits, and they were closer to home than he liked to think about. Only a few hundred miles away, his armies were still struggling with the undead legions of the rak king DarkThorne, still holding out in the northern marches, and beyond them were the former northern provinces of what had been the Empire of Belthar. Now brand new kingdoms, busy gathering their own armies and casting greedy eyes on their neighbours, including Belthar itself!

     There were more newly independent provinces to the south and east, totally encircling Belthar and isolating her from the rest of the world. They demanded heavy tolls for passage through their territories, and the tolls rose every year. And there were more enemies right here in his own court! Nobles and Generals who blamed him for the present sorry state of Belthar and who thought that the Kingdom (Kingdom, by the Gods! We once ruled an Empire!) would be better under their own leadership. It was intolerable! His rule was treated with a shocking lack of respect by those closest to him. Belthar itself was treated with contempt by the rest of the world, and it all stemmed from a single, all pervasive idea.

     Twenty years before, Belthar had fought a war. A desperate war against a terrifying enemy that had threatened the whole world. Despite the universal threat posed by the Shadowarmies, though, Belthar had had to face them almost alone. Oh, there had been Fu Nang, another empire on the other side of the continent, and their ambassadors had managed to shame a few other nations and Kingdoms into sending a scant handful of troops north to help, but the truth was that Belthar had had to face the wrath of the Shadowarmies almost alone. Belthar had managed to win that war, breaking the Shadowarmies and reducing them to the undead hosts of DarkThorne that somehow managed to persist in the north, but the cost had been terrible. Belthar had been left with a pitiful remnant of an army that was only large enough to patrol its own borders. Maintaining an empire had been out of the question, and the Beltharans could only watch helplessly as one province after another had declared its independence and broken away. Consequently Belthar was now perceived as weak. Not only by the surrounding newly formed Kingdoms but also, much more importantly, by its own citizens. Even his own ministers, and the landowners who controlled most of the country's wealth.

     "But we are still strong!" roared the King out loud as he strode away from the mirror and out into the corridor, startling a serving maid and almost making her drop an armload of newly washed and pressed linen. It was true, though. Belthar was weak only in comparison to the way it had been before the war. Compared to all the other human nations and kingdoms of northern Amafryka, Belthar was still strong. Easily the largest and most powerful political entity north of the great shae nations. That was the reality, but reality was much less important than public perception. The people thought that Belthar was weak, and that belief went a long way towards making it true.

     "The people have to be made to see the truth," muttered the King, ignoring the servants and bondsmen bowing and scraping as he strode past them, head lowered and hands clasped behind his back. What was needed was a grand gesture. Something that would impress people and seize their imaginations. Something that only an Empire would be capable of. It would have to be expensive, of course, but that was unimportant. Belthar still had plenty of wealth. It was in manpower that it was currently deficient.

     He paused, coming to a sudden decision, and then strode off in another direction, bellowing for his ministers. "Beckett! Beckett! Spiner! Where in the name of the Gods are you?"

     "Here, your Majesty," cried Beckett, the Voice of the King, who carried his commands out into the palace and the world. He was not of noble birth, and was regarded with barely veiled hatred by those who were, but as the Voice of the King he wielded more power than almost anyone else in the palace and was feared by everyone. Like the King's ministers and advisors, he and his family lived and worked in the palace, where they were constantly available whenever King Fennerel wanted them. Most of the routine business of government went on in the parliament building, in central Tara, but the top level stuff went on right here, in the palace.

     "I am here, your Majesty!" repeated Beckett as he entered the King's presence and dropped to one knee in front of him. "How may I serve you?"

     "Is the envoy from Lexandria University still in the city?" demanded the King. "If he is, I want him in my audience chamber in half an hour."

     "I will have to make enquiries, your Majesty," replied Beckett, rising cautiously to his feet. "If you recall, you had him thrown out of the palace. He may have taken your threat to have him beheaded seriously."

     "Thirty minutes, Beckett, or I'll have you beheaded. Now run to it!"

     He watched as Beckett hurried off to obey. The envoy hadn't said what inn or boarding house he was staying at, so it would be necessary to search the whole city for him, and possibly the roads leading out of the city as well. Knowing it would take a great deal longer than thirty minutes, therefore, the King sent for his personal bodyservants. He might just have time for a nice relaxing soak and a scrub before the wizards could be found.

     He was on the massage table, having rare and expensive oils rubbed into his massively powerful shoulders (The King had been a keen wrestler in his youth, and liked to keep in shape for the occasional bout he still indulged in from time to time) when Beckett returned to tell him that the envoy had been found and was waiting for him in the audience chamber. The King grunted in reply and settled back, waiting for the muscle-bound behemoth of a masseuse to finish with his body.

     "If I may be permitted to comment, Majesty," ventured the Voice, "I believe your first reaction was the correct one, although you may have overreacted a little. His proposal would be hugely expensive, as well as having nothing at all to offer us, and he..."

     "I will decide how much he has to offer us," rumbled the King contentedly. The masseuse moved the towel covering his lower body and started on his legs.

     "Of course, Majesty, but..."

     "Beckett, you know I value your advice and your opinions," said the King in annoyance. "However, in this matter I have no need for either. My mind is made up. Now go back to whatever you were doing and leave me alone."

     "Of course, Majesty," repeated the Voice, and he bowed his way out of the room.

     Now that he knew the envoy wasn't going anywhere, the King relaxed and took his time, and it was another two hours before he appeared in the audience chamber, accompanied by Corak Highdoor, the King's wizard. The envoy leapt to his feet as he appeared and bowed low before him, while the King lowered his powerful, athletic body slowly and carefully into the room's only chair. Corak took his place behind and to one side of him, studying the envoy through narrowed, suspicious eyes. Although both wizards were University trained, that did not create any sort of bond between them. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the palace wizard was famously suspicious of the University authorities. The King knew that he would be ready to cast spells that would utterly destroy the envoy at the first sign that he posed a threat to the King.

     "I have been thinking about your proposal," said the King without preamble. "Exactly how great would be the financial burden upon us if we accepted?"

     "At least ten million gold crowns," replied the envoy, straightening up. "And at least eight thousand tons of steel. It may sound a lot, but in the light of our discoveries..."

     "Iron may be flowing from Kronos again but it is still scarce and expensive,” snapped the King. “And I am not interested in your discoveries. If we accepted, we would want certain things in return."

     "Name them," said the envoy, hardly daring to believe the King's sudden change of mind.

     "The project will be commanded by a Beltharan, chosen by me. The emblem of the Beltharan Empire will be displayed prominently at every opportunity, and it will be made known to all that it is a Beltharan project. A project in which you are assisting us. I want word of the project spread to every corner of the world. Everyone must know of it, especially the people of our provinces. Our, ahem, former provinces."

     "I think the Director was hoping to keep a low profile on the whole business," said the envoy, however. "It was painful to him that we had to involve outsiders at all. If it hadn't been for the hideous expense, it is possible that even you might never have heard of it. Perhaps we could come to some sort of compromise..."

     "It will be as I want it, or you won't see a single ounce of Beltharan iron!" snapped the King angrily. "The whole world must hear of it, particularly our own people."

     "I understand," nodded the envoy with a sly smile. "You think the prestige will do much to distract attention from your problems at home. Nearly as good as a good war, eh?"

     The King turned crimson with indignation. "I did not summon you here to discuss politics. It will be the way I have described or you will return home with your pockets emptier than they were when you arrived."

     "I will have to consult my superiors," said the envoy calmly. "I do not have the authority to agree to such a major change of profile. You should not be so quick to rule out a compromise. Perhaps the project itself could be trumpeted far and wide, while the real reasons behind it are kept secret for a little while longer." The King nodded thoughtfully. "We would need more than just money, of course. We would also need engineers, carpenters, architects. An army of skilled craftsmen to undertake the actual construction. That sort of thing. Can you supply them?"

     "Men like that are still badly needed here," replied the King. "The rebuilding of the damage caused by the war is still scarcely underway."

     "I understand," said the envoy with another sly smile. "Perhaps we can get the workmen from somewhere else. One of your former provinces, perhaps. Of course that would mean your having to share the prestige of the project with them."

     The King turned crimson with rage. Now that the wizard knew what button to press, he was going to press it again and again until he got what he wanted. Raging against it would be pointless, though. Using the project to demonstrate how powerful Belthar still was would only work if Belthar provided all the money and manpower itself. It was either accept the wizard's terms or forget the whole thing. "You'll get them," he said therefore. "I presume you'll be wanting smiths and metalworkers too."

     "No, we'll be going to the trogs for them," said the envoy, though, "and we'll also be needing the help of the shae folk, and the moon trogs of Kronos. We need the best from all the races of the world, and its moons, for this project. It may well be the biggest thing attempted since the days of the Agglemonian Empire. Something so big that it's beyond the resources of any individual power or nation. Even the University itself."

     The King scowled at the mention of the moon trogs. The Kronos observatory and the iron mines were Belthar’s biggest secret. They’d spared no effort to keep them under wraps, but of course the University had found out about them before very long. Damn them with their mind reading spells and crystal balls! "Spare me the hype," he said irritably. "You said you'd have to consult with your superiors. How long before we hear of their decision?"

     "A couple of weeks, I'm afraid. Now that we can no longer teleport or farspeak over such great distances, I'll have to go by flying carpet. The world is rapidly becoming a much larger place."

     The King grinned, taking a savage delight at being reminded of the University's troubles. The way they went strutting around like little tinpot gods always made him want to slap them around the face, remind them that they were only human, just like anyone else. Now he didn't have to. Something or someone else was doing the job for him. "Well, you'd better get a move on, then, hadn't you? The sooner you leave, the sooner you'll get back."

     The envoy nodded, bowed low again and backed his way slowly out of the King's presence. The King waited until he was gone before rising and returning to his chambers, whistling a happy tune as he went.