Nobody had spoken to the emperor like that since he was a small boy and the words made him feel strangely secure. He did as he was told and then followed the saint into the crack in the rock. It led to a cave they had to stoop to enter. The saint struck a flint, lit a twisted rag in a bowl of fat, then picked up a wooden post. His dwarfish body was unusually powerful for he used the post to lever forward a great boulder till it blocked the entrance and shut out all daylight. Then he squatted with his back to the boulder and stared at the emperor across the foulsmelling lamp on the floor between them.
After a while he said, “Tell me your last dream.”
The emperor said, “I never dream.”
“How many tribes do you rule?”
“I rule nations, not tribes. I rule forty-three nations.”
The saint said sternly, “Among the perimeter people a ruler who does not dream is impossible. And a ruler who dreams badly is stoned to death. Will you go away and dream well?”
The emperor stared and said, “Is that the best you can say to me?”
“Yes.”
The emperor pointed to the boulder and said, “Roll that thing aside. Let me out.”
“No. You have not answered my question. Will you go away and dream well?”
“I cannot command my dreams!”
“Then you cannot command yourself. And you dare to command other people?”
The saint took a cudgel from the shadows, sprang up and beat the emperor hard for a long time.
The emperor’s early training had been stoical so he gasped and choked instead of screaming and yelling. Afterwards he lay against the cavern wall and gaped at the saint who had sat down to recover his breath. At last the emperor whispered, “May I leave now?”
“But will you go away and dream well?”
“Yes. Yes, I swear I will.”
The saint groaned and said, “You are lying. You are saying that to avoid being beaten.”
He beat the emperor again then dropped the cudgel and swigged from the wine-flask. The emperor lay with his mouth and goggling eyes wide open. He could hardly move or think but he could see that the saint was in great distress of mind. The saint knelt down, placed a tender arm behind the emperor’s shoulders, gently raised his head and offered wine. After swallowing some the emperor slept and was assaulted by horrible nightmares. He was among slaves killing each other in the circus to the wild cheering of the citizens. He saw his empire up on edge and bowling like a loose chariot-wheel across a stony plain. Millions of tiny people clung to the hub and to the spokes and he was among them. The wheel turned faster and faster and the tiny people fell to the rim and were whirled up again or flung to the plain where the rim rolled over them. He sobbed aloud, for the only truth in the world seemed to be unending movement, unending pain. Through the pain he heard a terrible voice demand:
“Will you go away and dream well?”
He screamed: “I am dreaming! I am dreaming!”
The voice said, “But not well. You are dreaming the disease. Now you must dream the cure.”
And the emperor had a general impression of being beaten again.
Later he saw that the boulder had been rolled aside. Evening sunlight shone through the entrance. The saint, who had cleaned the bruises with oil, now made him drink the last of the wine. The emperor felt calm and empty. When the saint said, “Please, please, answer my question,” the emperor shook with laughter and said, “If you let me go I will pray all the gods to give me a good dream.”
The saint said, “That is not necessary. The dream is now travelling towards you. Only one more thing is needed to make sure it arrives.”
He beat the emperor again and the emperor did not notice, then he picked the emperor up and walked from the cave and laid him on the litter prepared by the soldiers. He said to the commanding officer, “Carry your master carefully, for he is in a very sacred condition. Write down everything he says because now his words are important. And if he recovers tell him not to appologize for what he bribed me to do. Giving men dreams is my only talent. I never have them myself.”
The emperor was carried to the hub in slow stages for he was very ill and often delirious. At the first stoppingplace he dreamed of the axletree. He saw the great wheel of empire lying flat and millions of people flowing down the roads to the hub. From the hub a great smooth shaft ascended to the sky and ended in the centre of the sun. And he saw this shaft was a tower, and that everyone who had lived and died on earth was climbing up by a winding stair to the white light at the top. Then he saw this light was not the sun but a flame or a flame-shaped opening in the sky, and all the people were passing through and dissolving in the dazzling white.
For a month after his return the emperor saw nobody but doctors and the architect of the city’s building programme, then he called the leaders of the empire to his bedside. His appearance shocked them. Although he had reacted against a libertine father by tackling the worries of government he had been a robust, stout, stolid man. His body was now almost starved to a skeleton, the lines of care on his face were like deep cracks in an old wooden statue, his skin, against the bank of pillows supporting him, looked livid yellow; yet he regarded the visitors with an expression of peculiar levity. His voice was so strong and hollow that he had to rest between sentences, and at these moments he sucked in his lips and bit them as if to prevent laughter. He waited until everybody was comfortably seated before speaking.
“My political researches outside the rim have damaged my kidneys and I cannot live much longer. I have decided that for a few years most of the empire’s revenue will be used to build me a tomb. I invite you to form a company responsible for this building. Your time is precious, I don’t expect you to give it for nothing, and, if things go as I plan, work for this company will double your present incomes. If anyone dies before the great work is complete the salary will go to his successor.”
He rested until expressions of regret, loyalty and gratitude died away then indicated some architectural drawings on the wall near the bed. He said, “Here are the plans of the tomb. The basic shape is a steep cone with a ramp winding up. It is designed so that it can be enlarged indefinitely. I have not indicated the size of the completed work. Yourselves or posterity can decide that. My body will lie in a vault cut into the rock below the foundation. It will be a large vault, for I expect my descendants will also lie there.”
He smiled at the heir to the throne then nodded kindly at the others.
“Perhaps, gentlemen, you will make the tomb so big that you will be able to bury yourselves and your families in chambers adjacent to mine. Indeed, I would like even quite humble people who help the great effort to end under it, although their graves would naturally be narrower and less well furnished than ours. But you will decide these things. As to the site of the structure, it will be in the exact centre of the city, the exact centre of the empire. Has the high priest of war and thunder anything to say?”
The head of the state religion shrugged uneasily and said,“Sir, everyone knows that spot is the most sacred in the empire. My temple stands there. It was built by the hero who founded our nation. Will you knock it down?”
The emperor said, “I will rebuild it on a grander scale than ever before. The space above the burial chambers will be a pantheon to all the gods of our heaven and empire, for a great building must serve the living as well as the dead, or nobody will take it seriously for long. And my tomb will have room for more than a mere temple, even though that temple is the biggest in the world. Look again at the plans. The temple is the circular core of the building. Vast stone piers radiate from it, piers joined by arching vaults and pierced by arched doors. The spaces between the piers can be made wide enough to hold markets, factories and assembly rooms. These spaces are linked by curving avenues ascending at a slope gradual enough to race horses up. As you know, when I came to the throne I swore to rebuild our city on a grander scale than ever before. And what is a city but a great house shared by a community? The wealthy will have mansions in it, the poor can rent apartments. Parks and gardens will be planted along the outer terraces. And you, the construction company, will have your offices in the summit. As this rises higher the whole administration of the empire will move in beneath you … But a dying man should not look so far ahead. What do our businessmen say? Can they supply the materials to build on an increasingly large scale for generations to come? Can they provide food for a steadily enlarging labour force? I ask the heads of the corn and stock exchanges to give an opinion. Don’t consider the matter as salaried members of the construction company, but as managers of the empire’s trade.”