Guo Tianming stared in shock at
the letter he had received from the Pharaoh. A small, niggling voice in his head had never expected to hear anything back at all. To receive as his first communication from the faraway land an
apology! The part of him that wanted to frame it for his wall churned in opposition to the part of him that wanted to burn the letter to save face for the monarch. In the end, reason held out and, after carefully filing the letter away, he dialed the Great Peace Hotel to make a reservation. A guest of Wenhua Television Group could only have the best. His tongue nearly tripped over itself trying to stop himself from letting slip that an actual monarch, baubles, entourage, and all, would be visiting The Democracy for the first time since the Civil War. But the arrangements were made, and soon, a flight was arranged and he could focus on the important thing: convincing sponsors that he had got an actual, honest-to-goodness, Pharoah.
It was now September. Wenhua TV had blasted the airwaves for months with teasers its newest offering: something almost no one had seen for decades: a real, live, monarch. And a foreign one, no less. The prospect of a foreign treaty, of course, was mentioned here or there. But in their hearts, everyone knew the real reason to watch would be to see a Queen—yes, a Queen!—from the distant, mysterious Orient.
Citizens of the Democracy had an image of their heads of what such a person might look like. Old newsreels depicting headscarfed women, turbaned men, and gilded kings (and kings were always a category apart from women and men) were displayed in every documentary about Middle Aranye. And of course, no film set in Clysperis would be complete without a montage of great antiquities, pyramids, and steles.
After hours of painful, begging meetings, Tianming had managed to convince his bosses to leave these parts of the Orient to the imaginations of potential viewers ("everyone knows what Clysperis is in their heads, anyway"), and focus on the revolutionary aspects of inviting a foreign head of state to negotiate live with the people. After all, he said, if they expected the show to last more than a season, they couldn't
base it entirely on how exotic another nation might be.
The stage was dim as he prepared himself for go. The small army of translators signaled their readiness. Deep breath. Here we go. And the lights switched on...
"Welcome," said Tianming, "to Diplomacy, TV!" He smiled at the whooping, adoring crowd before him as he walked toward center stage. The crew had really done a good job setting up. Armchairs for him and Akasha flanked the sofa where the special guests, the real negotiators, would be sitting. Before them was a low table set with tea and, best of all, some lotus flowers imported for the occasion. "We have here tonight a very special guest, all the way from Middle Aranye, give it up for the Pharaoh, Akasha Di-‘nh-mi-Re!" He waved Akasha onto the stage, unnecessarily, and gestured to an armchair as he sat himself down in the one opposite.
"Pharaoh," he said, "before we invite our negotiators onto the stage, I hope you'll indulge us by telling us a bit about your country. How has Clysperis been in the last, oh, 70 years?"
