He threw back his hood, revealing the crown upon his head.

2. The Dead Coronet

Despite the strangeness of this dead man seemingly returning to life, Vigil was fascinated, even shocked, by the sight of the coronet.

As an antiquarian, Vigil recognized it as a material object which was not self-organized, as a living machine was organized, or a house, or a weapon, or any other thinking thing. Neither was it a man-made artifact, as he understood the term, meaning anything built up from the molecular level, such as an apple tree or an eyeball. Neither was it a Potentate artifact, built up from the atomic level, such as unobtainium or argent, or any of the other frivolously named elements nature could not make. The crown was dead matter crafted by hands, apparently without the use of machinery, since there were (so eyes like Vigil’s could detect) microscopic defects and asymmetries throughout. It was neither dead matter, natural, nor living matter, artificial.

It looked like a thing a schoolboy would make, or a Nomad, or someone else whose matter-printer was rudely programmed. But it was not. It was not printed at all. It was bits of matter put together by hand, macroscopically, and the bits were dead throughout the whole operation. It was handmade in the original sense of the word: made by hands.

Vigil sent an internal creature into the world archives, like a bright fish disappearing into a dark ocean, seeking a reference to what this crown was, or whence it came.

3. The Living Master

The Aedile, staring bright-eyed at this stranger, laid his hand on the table and spoke. “I call upon the Table itself to forefend us. We are breached!”

The cold voice, speaking in the ancient language, hummed from the dark surface of the invulnerable metal, as if far underground thunder were speaking, and Vigil’s teeth ached with the echoes. “None is here unwarranted, unasked, uninvited, or without ancient right.”

The dark stranger spoke in a voice of firm command, perhaps with a hint of laughter hidden in it. “I am the Founder of the Starfarer’s Guild, and my authority is supreme and paramount. Hear your master, and obey! Sieges! None sit in my presence!”

Vigil had no idea how many thousands of years old these ceremonial chairs were or how old was their programming. But he leaped to his feet.

Others were not so swift. The Terraformer and the Chronometrician were deposited unceremoniously on the floor. The other lords and dignitaries swayed or stumbled or clutched the Table edge when chairs bucked their occupants free, and then came to their feet with as much dignity as they could muster.

The dark and princely stranger raised his finger and pointed at Vigil. “You alone have obeyed the most ancient rules and iron laws eons ago I here established. For this, I commend you and grant to your family, race, and clan a boon, anything you wish, up to and including sovereign rulership of this world as my vicar. But know this: there is no law requiring the Lords of Stability to ignite the deceleration beam for a warship! Therefore, they are not in violation, and you must put up your sword and yield it to me once more, its true possessor.”

And he held up his left hand, drew back the dark fabric of the sleeve, and displayed an amulet of dark red metal, identical to the appliance connected to Vigil’s own wrist.

The internal creature he had sent into the archives returned and spoke inside his mind: This is the Iron Crown of Lombardy. He who wears it is the Most Noble Master of the Empyrean of Man.

4. The Living Blade

Vigil cautiously lowered the blade and put it home in its sheath, but when he kept his hands on sheath and grip, as if ready to draw it again, and made no move to surrender it, a silent force, like the pressure felt in the air before a storm, grew and grew beneath his gloves, and he could feel the impatient power in the sword swelling ominously. And yet he did not unhand the sheathed blade.

Vigil said, “Claim you to be Ximen del Azarchel, the Nobilissimus and Master of Mankind?”

The man smiled an alarmingly charming smile, tilting his head forward with a quirk of his eyebrows. “I am he. Among my other titles, my oldest and the only one I really cherish, is Senior Officer of the Landing Party. I am the founder of the Hermetic Order. You doubt? Don’t you have any coins in your pocket? Look at the profile on the gold royal. I am that man. That sword is mine. Hand it over.” The smile did not fade, but it somehow grew cold and menacing. “With haste. I do not repeat my commands.”

Vigil’s counselor said softly to him, “Don’t let go of that blade. Ask him who is the captain of the ship.”

Vigil understood. If Ximen del Azarchel was the captain of the Emancipation, he was in space, approaching at near-lightspeed. This, then, must be an emissary, a partial, a set of memories taken from Ximen and radioed ahead of the ship to prepare the ground for the ship’s arrival.

Vigil said, “The boon I ask is this sword. I ask that the world-destroying power of the Lord Hermeticist be kept in my possession and that of my heirs and assigns forever.”

Ximen snapped his fingers. “Very clever, but ask for another boon, and be quick about it. The blade is a precious heirloom to me and has sentimental value.”

Vigil shook his head. “A few questions before I decide whether your order is lawful, sir.”

“All my orders are lawful, the supreme law, merely by being mine.”

“Who is captain of the warship? Who is so mad that he would make war on worlds to which he could never return, slumbering the centuries between each battle?”

“The Master of the Empyrean has authority to compel or punish Powers and Potentates, Archangels, Angels, and the various posthuman races which may unwisely attempt to resist him. I require the use of their launching lasers to coordinate and focus all their beams in one spot in one particular decade, year, and hour. And some dared to question how their civilizations would tolerate the expense.

“Naturally”—again he smiled his engaging smile—“I had to leave a cadre of my own people, those of trusted loyalty, in charge of the gravitic-nucleonic distortion pools within their suns, and the lighthouse satellites controlling the focal elements in their Oort clouds. The cadre in each case had to be of strength sufficient that no combination of the native races, Angels, and Potentates could overcome them and also be of sufficient numbers to reproduce the generations needed to maintain the acceleration beam across the centuries.”

5. War and Life

“Why?” Vigil demanded, his voice growing louder and harsher than he expected. “Why all this horror and deception? Why is there war among the stars?”

“For my glory, of course,” said Ximen del Azarchel, raising both eyebrows, smug as a black tomcat. “And to accomplish my purposes. This little sphere of stars, a piddling hundred lightyears in radius, is too narrow a cage for the eagle wings of my ambition to spread to their full width! Come now! You are not stupid men! What does your paltry, far-off, dry, and dusty little moon, filled with race hatred and cruelty, have to offer? I notice you all let lie two dead bodies here on the floor.

“You are barbarians.”

He spoke this last word with a particular gusto of contempt. He continued, smiling eerily, “There is no warfare, no economic competition, no cruelty, and damn near no zest in life left back in the First Sweep worlds. You disgust me, but you have zest, eh?

“Ah, my dear people, you would be ashamed of the cousins left behind on your ancestral planets if you knew how easily my very small but very well-trained complement could bring your mother worlds to heel. Planets are very, very big, even small ones, and having enough troops to put men on every continent is nearly impossible—if I were not a military genius, I might not enjoy myself this much. But the Patrician race, the homogeneity they spread, their silly ideas of equality and fairness! Bah! You see where that leads!”