The old man ran a clawed hand through his wispy beard.

" 'Let the prince be prince, minister be minister, father father and son son.'

So it is written," he said.

The royal fingers kneaded an elaborate bronze chalice, and a serving boy, unnoticed, carefully poured more wine.

"They are all men. Men die. But I am different; the Son of Heaven. I shall not die. My body may stop, but I shall not die. I shall be immortal."

There were none to vouchsafe the emperor a response. The eldest scholar folded his hands around the cane and stared out over the exquisite royal city, where five palaces and fifty temples drowsed in the summer sun.

"I have heard the criticism of the scholars," the emperor said. "They ridicule my dealings with sorcerers and alchemists. They deny immortality because it is not written in their books.

"Scholars! It is not enough for an empire to be strong and orderly. No, they insist as well that the emperor must also be a sage, must also follow the teachings of Confucius, who is not here."

The eldest scholar replied softly, as though rebuking a child. " 'To govern is to set things right. If you begin by setting yourself right, who will dare to deviate from the right?' That is what Confucius said."

"I am the Son of Heaven and I have set things right in this world as I will in the next. You have seen my preparations. They have taken more than thirty years." The emperor cocked his head. "Did you not believe what you saw?"

"I believe in the majesty of the work I saw," the old man said evasively.

"Majesty? Yes, my old friend." The emperor nodded. "Majesty indeed. A mountain whose insides have been carved into the shape of the cosmos by hundreds of thousands of workers who have labored a lifetime. I have made a generation of peasants dig through subterranean streams and seal them off with bronze to create a burial chamber where I shall rule for eternity. Palaces, pavilions-with fine vessels, jewels, stones and rarities. With quicksilver I have created the waterways of the empire, the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, and even the great ocean itself, and made them flow mechanically. Perfect models. And above I have depicted the heavenly constellations, and below, the geography of the earth. All this you have seen?"