In those days, every man was his own master : he did what was right in his own eyes.
During the Hundred Kingdoms, every tyrant claimed to be the final answer to the division of men. Every subject prayed for the sovereign who would bring an end to death. When the Spring and Autumn Emperor came, under a name no one now remembers, one more voice joined the chorus.
A guru and his seven students, they began in the north and then were everywhere. Exultant Sunrise Mushe, Unbent Devotion Amah, Pearl-Eyed Maryam, Fixed Pillar Lewi, Laughing Peace Ruth, Viridian Fana Avram, and Silent. Eight crashed into the world like lightning. Though the Emperor sat on the throne, he named his dominion for his greatest General: The Empire of Exultant Sunrise.
In those days, every man was his own master : he did what was right in his own eyes.
Men began to question as soon as the last capital fell. What made these special, what made them right to rule. The Emperor, only the Emperor in those days, gave his reply. There is only one Master, your creator. This empire is a sign of the endless reign of Our Master.
All of the original seven students remained youthful. Decades. Centuries. A thousand years of peace passed without comment. They began to say that the Emperor was of the Spring and of the Autumn. It was exactly as he had said, the Empire was G-d's reign. The day of peace would never see an end.
Over time, the students became teachers themselves. They gave what the Spring and Autumn Emperor had given. Their understanding, filtered through their eyes and taught in their ways. They grew the love of G-d in the ways given to them. Little by little, they spread the true faith of their Emperor.
In those days, every man was his own master : he did what was right in his own eyes.
It was the millennium to the day that the Emperor announced his entry into isolation. He would be gone, but He would return. Men wanted to hear that nothing would change. They prepared nothing, for there was nothing to prepare for. The sun set on a day like any other, and then our Emperor was gone.
No one had expected that it would not rise again. Yet this was not the greatest of the surprises that morning. Exultant Sunrise Mushe, the Emperor's best-beloved student, was found dead. His body smoked in the dark like the missing sun had burned away the flesh. His students, whose teachings were on the sun, found themselves forced to mourn both.
In those days, every man was his own master : he did what was right in his own eyes.
The next to fall would be Viridian Fana Avram. Then Pearl-Eyed Maryam and Laughing Peace Ruth died. The remaining Generals began to age slowly. The last to die was Silent, who shut their tired eyes after fifteen centuries, still waiting for their Emperor's return. Those eyes would not open again, and the day of Generals in darkness ended.
The fracture among the students began almost immediately after the Emperor's disappearance. The others turned to the theological problems of Sun-lovers without a Sun. Seven orthodox orders became six. The Starry rigor of Levians disagreed with the Yeasty promiscuity of the Ruthines. The Desert Fanaites' acceptance of ideas had always been suspicious in hindsight.
In those days, every man was his own master : he did what was right in his own eyes.
Others watched from outside the orthodox walls. They saw Saints who fought like thunder, like cold on a winter night. Acts of G-d more than soldiers. Power was good and valuable, they said. Why make unnecessary sacrifice if their process can be understood? Heresy began in earnest.
Yet the world continued, as all things do. The Jinn grew restless, the world grew into the dark. Salt culled and Yeast grew, Stars separated and Moon reflected, Desert gathered and Lake waited. Unbound from each other, the world and its elements continued to grow. The world waited for a return longer than it had bathed in the Emperor's glory.
A new voice rose with no one listening. Bloodless Moon Kirsikka had a university chair in the south. She looked at the world and saw what others feared to see. She said what others feared to say, which was worse. The Empire, such as it was, was the umbilical cord to dying children. The Empire was dead, now, and its corpse was poison to the world.
In those days, every man was his own master : he did what was right in his own eyes.
The gathering of students was quiet until it wasn't. It was safe until it wasn't. The formal separation came out of the south like spark from a flint. The kingdom of the dark, she called it. Man lives in the dark, spends all his days in the dark. Man could no longer pretend at ignorance. He picks up the pieces of the world, as the Spring and Autumn Emperor had.
The Emperor will return. The faithful still hold that, deep inside themselves. The Emperor has abandoned us. The increasingly secular intellectual scene says, with increasing confidence. Both of them lie awake and shiver in fear that they are wrong.
In those days, every man was his own master : he did what was right in his own eyes.
What will your eyes see?
Who rules you?
Answer from the reading, not from analysis. First instinct is the useful one.