After the Shivans destroyed the Colossus and shattered the Capellan sun, Emperor Khonsu sent word to the Prophet Yahoel, saying {I have erred gravely. Who can stand against the power to incinerate the stars themselves? Bring me some divine word of guidance, for wisdom has failed me.}

When Yahoel came before the imperial throne, he bowed low to the ground and said, {O Emperor, what need have you for guidance? Are you yourself not guide to your people?}

The Emperor replied, {I did not heed the warning given to me by your predecessor. Instead I put my trust in strength of arms to safeguard our people, but that strength failed. Now I am shaken, and I need to know what path the divine will would have me take, if the Holy One has not abandoned us.}

Then Yahoel replied, {The purposes of the Holy One remain dark to us in these times. But you must return to the ways of the ancestors. Our people have no home now, and those who escaped from the blaze are scattered in the night. You have made our colonies strong, but they are not safe. We cannot build citadels around our oases. Therefore, my Emperor, order the people like the sand-walkers of long ago, always vigilant and ever ready to withdraw from the face of an approaching sandstorm. Order the warriors to fight like the nightblades of old, striking like lightning and disappearing into the darkness. A city needs fortifications, but who can find a tent in the desert?}

Emperor Khonsu accepted this counsel and followed it until the day he stepped down from the throne. But the Emperor]s son, Ramses, said to the Prophet, {Have we not been forsaken then? What of the promises in the ancient Scrolls that we would find our destiny in the stars, a home of glory and peace, where the scorching heat of midday would be as the soothing cool of twilight and the bitter cold of night would be as the sweet warmth of the dawn? We have found only fires worse than the sun and a frigid void of darkness, and now you tell us that we must wander as nomads without a home. What hope is left to us? Where will the dawn arise, and who will raise it up?}

———~The Scroll of Atankharzim 2:8-24
