[ WP ] `` All is lost ! The enemy is through the gate ! ''

The Celestial Emperor, called the Merciful Master of Men or the People's Prescient Protector or any other of a whole litany of similarly alliterative titles, was what ( were he not the Emperor ) one would call a sad, pathetic, drunk. What was worse was that he knew it, and saw this state of affairs as the result of a lifetime spent futilely struggling against the fact that he was completely unqualified and unsuited for the job that had been his to inherit by right of the lottery of birth. 
 
 He really had done his best, especially at the start when he had been younger, but it had n't helped. He had seemed to be cursed, every decision he made himself was a disaster - and then every minister he trusted and favored proved corrupt and disloyal. The oracles had been consulted at his birth, and of course their predictions had been favorable. His reign will be remembered for a thousand years after he has become one with his ancestors. All men shall see, he is a man without peers in his competence and achievement. Without peers, perhaps that was true. But not in a good way. The same was just as likely to be true of the other words, that he would be remembered. 
 
 It was, he thought, particularly sad and pathetic that at this of all times he could not think of a single major decision he had made that had turned out well. He could hear the cannon of the rebel generals thundering outside the walls of the Imperial City. The Immaculate City, it had been called. Held inviolate by the Celestial Emperors for nearly two thousand years, now to be sacked by his own disloyal troops. The shame of it was immense. What had his family done to lose the Mandate of Heaven, how could he ever face his father or grandfather in the afterlife? He did not know. 
 
 He stood at the high viewing platform from which he had, in happier times, overseen processions and the various secular proceedings of the festivals and high holidays. As good a place as any to oversee his defeat and disgrace. From his roost, he could see a small band of soldiers in the black lacquered armor of the Imperial Guard double-timing it up the high granite steps of the palace. One of them had lost his halberd somewhere, and they seemed to be coming from the fighting. He wondered what news they'd bring - wondered, and knew with a sick certainty that it would be nothing good. Perhaps the barbarians are come over the border to prey on the Empire in its moment of trouble, and in the process of sacking the borderlands and slaughtering his people they'd force his generals to reach a settlement with him and so save his life and some scrap of his honor... how low had he fallen, that this was the best news that he could hope for? 
 
 He was up on the viewing platform alone except for a servant boy with silver ewer of wine, and he had the boy fill his cup again while he waited for the messengers to reach him. Sweet wine, the balm of all his hurts. Sweet wine, from some august vineyard in the hill country that doubtless advertised its wares with the fact that the Emperor himself ( who drank only the finest ) drank wine from their vines. He swallowed the whole cup in a single motion, pouring the rich wine straight down his throat. No way to treat such a vintage, of course, but he was fast approaching the point where he'd never drink again so why not. At least it would mean less wine for the enemy, although he imagined that there'd be enough left in the city itself to make the besieging army drunk ten times over before the sack was through. He gestured to his servant, and got another refill. 
 
 When the guardsmen reached him, their apparent leader cried out at once: 
 
 `` All in lost! The enemy is through the gate!'' For a moment, the Emperor wanted badly to ask which gate... not that it mattered. Even he knew that when the disparity of numbers was as great as it was now, any breach would likely prove fatal for the defenders. So it had come to this. He drank down his cup of wine, reflecting on how much he'd already drunk today, and waved away the poor, loyal, servant boy's offer of another refill. 
 
 He was a little surprised that his hands did not shake, but... he took a ring from his left hand. Rubies set in a thick band of yellow gold, it was heavy in his hand. He gave the ring to the servant boy - because, why not? - and followed it with another, emeralds in rose gold. Each worth a small fortune, but he handed them over and waved the boy off. Let him flee and, ideally, survive. He'd done nothing wrong that the Emperor knew of. He followed his absurd gesture by removing the rest of his jewels and distributing them to the guards who had come to him. Soon each held a king's ransom. Then he cast off his outer robe, letting the heavy embroidered silk fall to the stones. Let it be trampled or burned as fate willed it, he would not wear it again. All is lost. 
 
 The Emperor cast off his robes of office, so that he stood before his guards in white linen. Something simple. Something he could die in. He had their full attention by then, and he could see columns of smoke rising from the city by now. He wondered how long it would be until he could hear the screams of the populace as the rebels sacked the city. Men dying, women being raped. All is lost, and all of it his fault in the end. 
 
 He considered the Imperial Palace for a long moment, ten thousand rooms full of art treasures and artifacts. The congealed splendor of an Empire that had lasted two thousand years. Ten thousand rooms full of the finest works of art in the Empire, ten thousand rooms and each one of them a work of art. Fine wall hangings and intricate screens, glass clear enough to see read through. Assorted toys and treasures such as had never before been seen in any age of the world. Such as never would be seen again, he suddenly felt with an awful conviction. All is lost. 
 
 He asked, in the seemingly-absent-minded rhetorical way he had been taught to ask for things, for a sword. And one was given to him, a fine blade suitable for an Imperial Guardsman. He smiled at his loyal soldiers, and considered the palace behind them. 
 
 `` Burn it,'' he told them and it took them a moment to realize what he meant. Burn it, and deny the rebel generals all the wealth and glory of the Empire they were overthrowing. Burn it, and leave the traitors to proclaim themselves Emperors of the ashes. The soldiers obeyed, of course, hardly even hesitated. Enough of the palace staff had remained behind that the work was easily done. The grand library burned, thousands of scrolls transformed into kindling. The tax records and census registers of the Imperial bureaucracy went up in flame, a thousand years of records vanishing into smoke. The Emperor watched his minions work, and gloried in the dreadful apotheosis of the Empire's splendor. 
 
 All is lost. The city and the palace burned, as his loyal troops perished uselessly. All is lost. The Celestial Emperor, clad in soot-stained white linen, led a last knot of Guardsmen away from the burning ruin of the grandest structure any of them could imagine being built. Led them away into the streets of their city, out of history and into anonymity and death. All is lost. 
 
 All is lost! The enemy is through the gate, and the Imperial City is in flames!
