[b]Addis Ababa: July, 1974[/b]

Emperor Sahle smelled like liquor and sex. He had spent the afternoon with a friend from his University years, who the Emperor entertained with expensive hookers, and with drinks that were even more expensive than the women. They didn't drink so much that they were wasted, but it had been enough to cause both of them to finger their women with their middle fingers and giggle about how they were flipping each other off. When the women got boring, Sahle tossed them out on a street corner, making sure to pay them well enough so that they had no reason to complain. When the afternoon waned into night, Sahle remembered that he had a Gala to attend.

And so the Emperor strode through the baroque halls of the Imperial residence. He wore a black suit-jacket over a dress shirt. His jacket was decorated with medals he had never really earned, and over that he wore a sash in the Ethiopian colors - green, yellow, and red. A white cape was draped over his shoulders to make him look more Imperial.

"Sahle, Sahle, Sahle." Baruti flew down the hall in a panicked tizzy. Baruti was a small, balding man with an unattractive, almost insect like face, and he was Sahle's personal assistant. He had once been a sort of tutor or mentor or something of that nature, though the Emperor never completely understood Baruti's place. He was useful, that was the important thing, and Sahle was so used to having him around to help and take care of him and his affairs that he never worried too much about what Baruti's actual function was. 

"You are very late." Baruti finished saying.

"I'm an Emperor." Sahle moaned. "I can't be late. The guests are just early."

Baruti was tugging on the Emperor's clothes, making sure every crease was perfect. "These Europeans will decide your country's future. You mustn't offend them, or they may withdraw their offers."

"That is fine. I don't need them anyway. Ras Hassan says that this European move is a bad one. If the Europeans won't listen to me, we'll find another way to calm all the rebels." 

Ever since the death of his father, Sahle's Empire had been wracked by traitors. People saw the change in monarchs as an opportunity to advanced all kinds of anarchist and republican ideas. They wanted a liberal nation, one where there was no Emperor, and that made Sahle feel like a target. All he wanted was to be left alone with the prestige and wealth of his title. He wanted the Europeans and the rebels to all disappear and stop being a threat to him. But it seemed like the Europeans were the lesser of the two evils. They would preserve him, and that was most important, even if it cost him some prestige in the process. 

"Have you shaved? Baruti asked. Sahle felt his face. There was some stubble, but did it matter? He ignored his assistant and kept walking, through halls who's sparse decorations had not changed since his father's death, and toward a door behind which a small gathering of European and Ethiopian leaders waited for him. 

"Let's get this over with." Sahle muttered under his breath. He went through the door and put on a smile. 

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhTjHbAKw4](sahletiem music)[/url]

Sahle's gait lightened, and he seemed to flow into the room like on a cloud. Most of the people were older than him. There were Africans in western suites, and Africans in their traditional clothes. On the far side of the room, segregated by culture and the lack of racial familiarity, the nervous white Europeans mingled with each other. 

The Emperor plucked a Mimosa from a server's tray as he strode by and, without missing a step, he came to the young sister of one of his Governors and kissed her hand. This part of being Emperor was something he enjoyed. He liked the feelings of glamour and power that came with these sorts of displays. He took a sip of his drink and approached the former Prime Minister, Dumaka Amiri, placing his hands delicately on the shoulders of the man's middle aged wife as the two men talked. Sahle didn't think so much about the words as he just said them, and he couldn't remember what exactly it was that he had said before, like a man carried by the wind, he moved on to the next person. 

It felt like a dance. In his mind, he was recounting which of these women he had wooed, and which he had managed to bed, although so many were older women whose bodies he wouldn't even consider peaking at. He saw Adila Minkah, his Judicial Advisor, and a female one at that. But she was old and dried out like a corpse in the desert, and he shook her hand as if she was a man. He also saw the supremely dark-skinned Nassor Chitundu talking with the young Swahililander liaison between Parliament and the military. The Emperor raised his glass to them, and they bowed. Sahle felt a rush of power then, and he slammed down the remaining Mimosa, left the glass on a passing tray, and grabbed another drink from another server just as quickly. 

Next came the Europeans. They looked less comfortable here, but Sahle strutted toward them with the same royal narcissism that he had showed his continental guests. There were Germans, and Belgians, and a number of Englishmen as well. Poland always had a few representatives in the African empire, and today was no different, though they were here to peddle weapons as was their practice. Sahle stopped by all of them, laughing at partial jokes and getting just friendly enough with their wives and daughters to make some of the men bristle. However, before anybody had the chance to think about what had happened, the Emperor had moved on. 

He approached Vince Reynard now. Reynard was somehow tied to the British Consulate in Istanbul, but he spent a lot of his time lobbying for the interests of British Petroleum in the Middle East and Africa. He was a brooding, boring old man who always tried to talk business. Sahle was not interested in talking to him, but it was a necessity of the office, as he knew that the British Petroleum interests had the money to keep his government safe from its people. With Reynard was a slight, mousy haired young woman, and she was more interesting to the Emperor. He could not tell if she was an adult or still in her adolescence, but it did not matter so much to him. That was a Western idea. In the real world, a person was an adult as soon as they stopped looking like children. She was old enough to have hair where it counted. He guessed her age to be about fifteen.

"Your Imperial Majesty." Reynard bowed. He had the voice of an aging Shakespearean actor, which did not match his dour face or the robe of stringy grey hair that grew from the sides of his otherwise spectacularly bald head. The girl followed his lead and bowed. 

"I just came back from Cairo..." Reynard added.

Sahle smiled. "With her?" he said as smoothly as he could. "Tell me, did you escape some sheikh? I bet you had to run out of town with a lady such as her." Sahle did not see how Reynard was reacting. His eyes were only for the girl, who herself looked uncertain how to act.

"This is my daughter, Emily." Reynard replied. Emily was flustered by Sahle's attention, but she was good at picking up cues from her father. She bowed again and confidently said "It is a pleasure to meet you, your Imperial Majesty."

"Ah, you won't know pleasure from meeting another person until you meet somebody like yourself, my lady. Tell me, I do not know how your England works, but are you a princess?"

"What? No, my father isn't the King." she answered. Her uncertainty had melted away and been replaced by a smile. He was beginning to amuse her, and that was a start.  

"Ah. Your father is an important man though. He had dinner with a Sheikh."

"I did, actually. But not of the Egyptian kind." Reynard interrupted. "One of British Petroleum's largest investors lives in Cairo. I have him lined up in support of our venture, assuming your government is behind it as well."

"Rights? Right. Oil Rights. Of course, Mr. Reynard, you can have all of that."

"We need something from you, your Imperial Majesty." Reynard answered before Sahle had the chance to redirect the conversation back toward the girl. "There are disturbing reports about Ras Hassan. I notice he is not here tonight. We need your military on our side if you want to hold this country."

"Hassan doesn't want to be Emperor!" Sahle laughed. "He wants to be a soldier. He won't try to take my throne, do not worry about him."

"You will need him, so be sure of that." Reynard insisted.

"I have him." 

"We will quell your rebels, though it may take some time. But a full-sized Civil War would attract attention. You know that China is not your friend. They want the metals that can be taken from the Congo. But the Spanish might be your enemy as well. The wells in Murzuq will go dry in a few years..."

"You will take care of it, and Hassan will take care of it. I have complete faith in the British Petroleum company." Sahle said. He turned to the girl. 

"So, tell me about England...

--

[b]The Border of Georgia, Present Day[/b] 

Sahle woke up to the sound of haggling. His head was resting against the passenger's side window of Vasily's beat up truck, in a cab that smelled like grease, and he was wrapped up in a stained woolen blanket. Vasily was leaning out of the driver's side window, haggling with a man in a thick, grey-green greatcoat. At first, Sahle felt a jolt of fear at the thought that this guard was with the Armenian authorities, and that he had finally been caught. His eyes shot from one side of the road to the other. There was a military truck on the side of the road where another guard sat on the bumper and nursed a bottle of something. The guards had lit a fire in an old oil-drum, and the smoke curled straight into the crisp Caucasian air. 

"Come on, brother. You are having a road here so people can drive on it. That is what it is here for, is this not being so?" he heard Vasily plead. Sahle said nothing. Instead, he inspected the strange flag painted on the side of the guard's truck. It was a horizontal tricolor in green, black, and red. Sahle had never seen it before in his life. These people weren't with the Armenian government.

"I will be sweetening up the pot of honey." he heard Vasily say to the guard. Sahle watched as the Russia produced a small wad of cash and handed it to the guard. And that was it. That was all it took. The guard nodded and backed away, and Vasily started driving again.

When they were far enough away that the truck was just a glint in the rear-view mirror, Sahle turned to Vasily.

"Those weren't Armenians. Who were they?"

"They were Armenians." Vasily warbled.

Sahle looked confused. "What? That flag..."

"The men were from Armenia, but they're taking money from the Dagestani. There is being more money in the soldier work than there is in the civilian work, or at least this is true for those men."

"What is Dagestan?" Sahle asked.

"Oh dear, your great majestyness. You have not been listening to the news."

"I pay attention to what goes on in Africa." Sahle replied. 

Vasily nodded. "This is fine. Dagestan is a tiny little country that is invading Georgia. I am not knowing where they get the money for this thing, but they are doing it."

"This is a warzone?" Sahle sat up, alert. The countryside showed no signs of war. Rough, scrubby mountains flanked the roads on both sides. It reminded Sahle of the land near Sevan - no trees, and naked hills - but this place look wilder, less inhabited. 

"You have been in the warzones, my excellent Emperor friend." Vasily smiled. "The worst of the trouble is being on the coast. There is Georgians there who want to have Georgia. Out here, the Dagestani sit on the roads and squeeze money out of the people who want to be on the road."

Georgia went on forever, but they did not stop except to refuel. The Russian kept several jerrycans full of gasoline in the back of the truck so that their refuel stops happened in hidden places well off of the main road. There was a jug of water in the truck-bed as well, and a burlap sack full of flat-bread crackers sat between the two men in the cab. 

It was when they began to climb into the imposing Caucasian mountains that the sun started to set. Vasily pulled off of the road and found a place in a shadowy coniferous forest. The sun had disappeared over a mountain in the west, making the trees black for want of sunlight. Sahle remembered the story Vasily had told him the first time he visited Georgia, about the mustachioed highwayman named "Koba" that had hunted for victims in these mountains during the first half of the century. He also remembered the Armenian mercenaries on the border. These things made him feel uneasy.

They stopped and Vasily started a fire. Sahle told him how, in the movies, the smoke from fires attracted enemies, and Vasily laughed. The Russian told him that it was better to not freeze to death than it was to avoid having to shoot somebody, and that the chances of somebody seeing their camp fire and thinking it was worth their time to check out was slim. He took an old can of borscht and placed it over the fire to heat it. While the first can cooked, Sahle read the second can and became concerned when he noticed that it had expired in '72. He expressed his uncertainty

"Look at this thing that I am showing you." Vasily said, grabbing the can. He turned it over and tapped the surface of the top, and then turned it again to tap the bottom. "These are not bulging out. That means that there is no diseases eating at the foods that are in the cans. This borscht, it might not taste so good because it is old borscht, but that is okay, because borscht is not very good anyway."

They ate in silence. It hit Sahle just then that he had woke up that morning as Samel, in a hospital surrounded by friends. He was going to fall asleep as Sahle, an Emperor who was dead to the world, and his only companion was this Russian and his nasty soup. He did not know what his future was going to bring. The only conclusion that seemed to make sense was that he was going to be sold by whoever paid Vasily. What other use could he possibly be to them? And where were they going? He remembered Vladmira, and he remembered what she had told him about her part in the plot to assassinate the Tsar.

"Are we going to Finland?" he asked Vasily.

Vasily spat. "Finland? No. I told you Russia." he pronounced 'Russia' with an exaggerated growl. "Why would we go to Finland?"

"Vladmira told me that she was Finnish. She said that she helped to assassinated your Tsar."

Vasily laughed then. It was not his usual jolly laugh, but rather a dark, sinister grumble that seemed come from his gut. "She did not do this thing, and she is not Finnish. You were lied to."

"Who was she then?"

"She was born in Sankt-Peterburg, October 7th of 1952. Her father was a Vladimir, and he was in the navy if I am remembering right. Her mother was a Maria. I do not know if she did anything, and I am not knowing if they are alive anymore."

Sahle was surprised. "You know all of this from heart?" he asked.

"I was bedding her for a few years." Vasily admitted. "So it was important that I know these things. It would be a bad idea to ejaculate blind, I am thinking. You know this, do you not? You have learned this thing today." 

Sahle couldn't say that he was wrong.

"You are not knowing the language of Russia." Vasily asked from out of nowhere. "I am thinking this will confuse you."

"I don't." Sahle agreed. He knew several languages, a symptom of his schooling and the time he spent in Europe, but Russian was not one of them. They had been speaking in Armenian this entire time. He had learned Armenian over the course of the first month he lived there, so he was eager to learn Russian and did not feel overwhelmed by the idea. "I need to know it. Can you teach me?"

Vasily agreed. They spent the next few hours practicing, and Sahle felt as if he had gotten the hang of a few basic phrases before they went to sleep.

The next day was a little brighter. It was not the weather, but something about a night's sleep that helped him to clear his head. They had flat-bread crackers and water for breakfast. With only that meager meal on their bellies, they were back on the road. 

The Caucasus mountains made for a slow, winding drive. They had passed through a few small villages on their way through the valley, but now that they were in the mountains, there were nothing but irrelevant hamlets of two or three houses to be seen. The mountains themselves amazed Sahle. They reminded him of the Alps in Europe. Though the Ethiopia's African Empire boasted several impressive ranges, the only ones that Sahle had visited himself were backbone ranges of the Ethiopian highlands. But even the lofty Semian mountains, with their ambas and knifing spires of rock, did not have monumental presence that the Caucasus mountains possessed. If the Semian mountains were warriors - difficult, dangerous, and full of surprises - then the Caucasus were Kings, who's thrones spread wide and deep into the roots of the earth and who's crowns were made of snow.  

They spent the morning practicing Sahle's Russian. When noon came, they stopped to top-off the fuel tank. Sahle pissed from the side of a cliff and watched his stream fall toward the distant rocks below. When their pit stop was over, they began to descend from the mountains, and Sahle practiced his Russian some more.

The villages became larger, and more frequent, but the people did not seem to pay much attention to them. "We are in Ossetia now." Vasily said, first in Armenian and then in Russian. He repeated each sentence this way, sometimes changing it up so that the Russian came first and the Armenian came second. "This means we are in Russia."

"Is Ossetia part of Russia?" Sahle asked.

"Russia is not a country right now, but it will be again, and when it is, Ossetia will be with us."

It was only a few hours later when they passed an single plywood guard-post along the highway. The man inside was wearing civilian clothes and a fur hat, and he had a rifle in his hands. Vasily slowed down, but when the man saw him, he waved them through.

"We are now in Russia." Vasily explained. "Not the Republic, but the Volga state."

"What is that?" Sahle asked.

"I think we are a... commonwealth? A gathering peoples who do not think that the Republic is Russia, and do not think that the Communists are Russia, and do not think that Poland is Russia. There are many independent groups in this land, and they all have their own agenda, but they all agree with what I just said. A confederation. Perhaps that is the term that I am looking for."

"And your employer?"

"We are one of those groups, yes."

Sahle felt the decision about his fate looming over him now. "Will your employer sell me to Ethiopia? My brother..."

"I doubt this will happen." Vasily said curtly. "But it is not my decision to make."

Sahle was conflicted. How else would he be of use to these Russians? At the same time, he couldn't help but trust Vasily. The Russian had saved his life from Barnham's goons. When everything went to shit in Sevan, it was Vasily who cleaned it up and hid Aaliyah. He had nowhere to run anyway, but he didn't really feel like running. Somehow, for no reasonable reason, Sahle felt safe.

This time when the sun began to set, they stopped at an Inn in one of the small towns. An older couple ran the place. They kept a garden on the side of the building where they gathered some of their food. The building had siding made from unpainted lumber, but the building was not scrappy like the guards post they had seen on the border. This place was quaint. They ate with the owners of the inn, sitting on the porch and watching the sun dip over the horizon. Vasily asked for the news.

"The Cossacks in Sochi drove the Mafiya out of the mountains east of the city." the old man grunted. 

"What were the Mafiya doing up there?" Vasily asked.

"They were moving drugs into Sochi from the mountains." he explained. "A few months ago, a sailor came through and told me that the Cossacks bought a fishing trawler and sent some of their boys out to board Mafiya smuggling ships. They don't say they are at war, but they are at war."

"It's all out west of us." his wife chimed in, nervous. "It won't spill over here."

The old man nodded. "Gangs. Those two are just criminal gangs fighting over turf. We'll keep our heads down out here and nobody will notice."

"What about the Communists?" Vasily asked.

The old man sighed. "They took Tyumen. They are about to take Yekaterinburg. The Republic is done for."

Vasily looked grim, but he said nothing.

"Are the communists bad?" Sahle asked. He had mixed feelings about China. They had been a threat to him when he was Emperor, and they were part of the reason that his brother took his place, but now that they were helping Africa to defend itself, he couldn't help but feel a little grateful.

"They are not good. They are foreigners, and they are not Russian." Vasily answered.

The old man got up and walked to the edge of the porch. He looked out across the plain, north east toward nothing that could be seen. "Nothing good has ever came over the Urals." he brooded.

Sahle looked in the same direction that the old man's gaze fell. He realized, by looking at the faces of Vasily and the old woman, that their feelings were the same. They saw Siberia as the worse of all the evils Russia faced. It wasn't anarchy that loomed over Russia - the people here were used to that. The danger was in the east. Russia, like Africa, was being swallowed by an uncaring foreign force. It was being made into a colony.