“That title…” she scoffed. “I created it as a joke. It was tongue in cheek. It was self-ridicule… but it took on a life of its own.” She shrugged. “In a way, all titles and positions are ludicrous. Emperors, kings, queens, priests, and wizards. They are all pinpricks in the tapestry of humanity. Just look at King Laumas, he has not even eighteen winters. I have lived over fifteen hundred winters, and two dozen of those were nuclear winters.”
It took a moment for Sam to access his twenty-first century knowledge to understand what nuclear winter was. His mouth dropped open again.
“The only purpose of your title is to get you listened to by the high and mighty people of power, whose moment under the sun, believe me, is fleeting, fickle and fatuous. It gets you to the table where the plans are made.”
