The Emperor Who Had No Clothes

Gloranthan Folk Tales

Gloranthan Songbook

Moonie Madness

Carmanian Sources

Malkioni Scriptures

One evening, the Emperor put off his golden robes, and laid down his golden sceptre, and set aside his golden crown. The orb left him, and he dressed in the clothes of a common labourer, and left the palace to go unrecognised through the streets of the city. And that night he learned much of what the people of the Rich Land thought of their lives and of their ruler and his nobles, and of how the new laws that were urged upon him by the Senate and Priests would please or displease them. He formed a new resolve as to how he should rule, and as dawn broke he left the dwellings of the people and returned to his splendid palace.

But when he had left the palace, his Shadow (which had dwelt with him all his life) had stayed behind. And in the darkest part of the night, it stood, and clad itself in the royal robes of gold, and circled its head with the crown, and lifted the sceptre in what passed for its hand. The Shadow called for the Senate to meet, though it was past midnight, and the servants carried its message. The old men came in, wagging their heads and tugging their beards at the strangeness of this novelty.

Then the Emperor's Shadow began to rule. It gave the strangest commands that had ever been heard in the Rich Land: that the temple fires should be extinguished, that women should be admitted to the temples, that a banquet of filth should be provided for the common folk, that the children should be sent away into the lands of Death. These things and many others it asked. And the Senate could but wonder at its intent.

The old men looked at the figure they took to be their ruler, but they did not see that it was but a shadow of a man cloaked in the golden robes of rule. Their eyes were dazzled by the splendour of its robes; none saw that there was but a dried husk where a man's face should be. "Ah," they said, "our Emperor is testing us. He seeks to know if there is anything we would not do for him. But our loyalty is unconditional, and we will do these things if he wills it. It will not take long for us to prove ourselves, and then this unheard-of folly will cease."

So they acquiesced, and the orders were made. But now it was that the true Emperor returned to the palace. As he moved through the inner chambers to return to the place where he had left his regalia, he was seen by a slave, who cried out at the sight of an intruder (so he thought) in the heart of the palace. The guard came running, and seized the man, and dragged him before the Shadow where it sat in council.

"This man is a common thief and a murderer," the Shadow decreed. "At high noon tomorrow, he shall be impaled for the pleasure of mighty Yelm." And again the Senate applauded his wisdom -- for this was ever the way of things in the Rich Land. Just as they could not tell the Shadow for his rich robes, so they did not recognise the Emperor when the outward signs of his glory had been stripped from him.

So the Emperor passed a miserable morning in the pits under sentence of death, while in the city streets the proclamation of his Shadow's decrees proceeded apace. And at high noon he was taken from that place and led to where an impaling stake had been made ready for him. The Senate and the People crowded round to see the justice of this punishment; the Shadow itself was there, to gloat over the discomfiture of its former owner.

But as the executioners were seizing their rightful lord and lifting him to his place atop the pole, there came a cry from the crowd. For a young boy who was there had looked at the real Emperor, and this child was young enough that he saw things as they were, and not as they seemed to be. And he cried out, "That's the Emperor they're killing; it is him, even though he has no clothes!"

And with that recognition of his power and right, the imperial orb descended again to the Emperor and hovered above him. The Shadow fell discomfited to beg for mercy at his feet (and since that day, shadows have ever lain at the feet of their masters, and not done evil as they willed it). The Emperor knew from his experiences that he should never again go secretly among the people, and instead he allowed the people to send a delegation to him whenever there were matters afoot that concerned them.

The Senate, too, saw their folly, and vowed never again to be taken in by such frauds. And so it happened; for when in later years another Emperor proposed such blasphemous decrees, the Senate knew at once that he was no true Emperor, but the evil Shadow of what an Emperor should be. They straightaway put him to death, and sure enough, when they had done so, the real Emperor came to them dressed in a commoner's clothes, but the Senate recognised him at once and girt him about with the robes and regalia of rule. And their Emperor ruled wisely and fairly, as they had known that he would once restored to the highest dignity.

Thus it was, in the days before the Moon.