The Sabi Race (3)
Ahumrek, beaten in his argument with Kalka-kum, drew back with a stifled, hollow look on his face, then turned his whole body away, as if he couldn't bear the sight of this side at all.
I gave him a crooked little smile for it, and did my best to address Kalka-kum from something like an objective footing.
"You asked me to swear it was true that I'd met the Lord of the Great Sea, didn't you? Of course I can. I've seen the Lord of the Great Sea twice in all. The first time was after the fight with Baekcheong, when I was spent and half-unconscious."
The name alone was enough to make Ahumrek frown—and Kalka-kum with him, calm as she seemed, cold as her judgment looked. Not my problem.
I'd met that being in a daze, halfway between dream and waking, and I couldn't have said for certain whether it was real. But I, at least, believed it had been no dream. Declaring as much, the way Kalka-kum had asked, was no hardship. If anything, it was what I wanted. Hand them a simple confirmation, and I could cut my potential enemies down by a wide margin.
"The second time was after that, in the middle of the downpour and the flood. I even struck a bargain with the Lord of the Great Sea then, and across both meetings he said it to me himself. 'Baekcheong has harbored a grudge. Watch yourself.'"
Ahumrek, as if he wanted to hear about that bargain, quietly tilted an ear my way. I watched him with cold eyes. Kalka-kum had been listening all the while, hands clasped, eyes closed; once she had heard me out, she lowered her head, profoundly grieved, and spoke.
=All of it... is true.=
"That one in the white robe seems to be looking down on me, for some reason. The rest of you are going to need to understand why I'm standing out here in front of your city, taking the time to talk."
Fail that, and the Sabi of Mt. Veltical go extinct.
Perhaps taking my words for empty bluster, Ahumrek started to bristle—but Franc caught the shift. She twisted her brow into something fearsome and took a single step forward, and he scrambled backward with a look that said he'd just grabbed a live coal.
Watching that little farce, Kalka-kum wore the sour face of grief gone so far it burned in the gut, and her tone came out a little sharp, a little aggressive.
=You are arrogant. We Sabi are not so weak that you may look down upon us. You ought to know that should our entire race stand as one, even Lord Baekcheong would be forced to watch himself.=
"And you ought to know what state that Baekcheong is in right now, don't you think?"
I'd only tossed it out as a jeer, but something in it seemed to land. Kalka-kum went blank, then turned to Ahumrek with the strength gone out of her shoulders.
=...Ahumrek. What do you intend to do?=
=Even should death take me soon, I cannot drive Lord Baekcheong to his death.=
He said it as if it went without saying—arms folded, grave, dead serious, immovable.
Is this bastard an idiot? Does he not think? Talk like that, and he expects me to go, "Oh, is that so? Then I'll head back and get ready for a fair fight. Ha ha," and just send him on his way?
The instant those words left his mouth, I slammed the Blue Space Wall down over every one of them. Ahumrek and Kalka-kum, every scale on their bodies standing on end as if they were braced against Franc; the 170 Sabi who had followed; and the 172 lizard mounts besides.
First strike wins. It always does.
The five priests and 167 of the warrior class—the very core of the Sabi's strength—turned to ice statues inside the Blue Space Wall, and it happened in an instant. There was not even a gap in which to resist.
I walked over, step by deliberate step, and stopped in front of Kalka-kum, whose pupils had blown wide. She turned a bewildered gaze on me, like someone who had just witnessed the unbelievable. I smiled into that look, all innocence, and spoke.
"Too bad. Looks like the negotiations are off."
More of a unilateral notice than a negotiation, really. All 172 Sabi were straining for everything they had to break out of the Space Wall, and not one of them could. I'd sealed it under their feet, just in case.
"Ah. Now that I think of it, Kalka-kum's faction said they wouldn't stand against us, didn't they?"
I said it in a flat monotone, like a man reading from a primer, and released only Kalka-kum from the Space Wall. She looked back, trembled, and the moment I raised my hand she lunged forward and threw herself flat on the ground.
=P-please wait, Akur Seoha!=
"You've been Akur this and Akur that for a while now. What is that?"
It wasn't coming through rendered into words I knew, so it had to be one of their proper names.
=T-to put it simply, it means a wanderer who drifts about holding no territory—an Akur. You are a strong one who has stepped outside the frame, one we cannot grasp. I beg you—show mercy, and spare their lives!=
"Whether they die later or die now, it's the same thing. Oh—and if that white bastard comes charging in looking for a fight, I'll kill them all, and then your faction will pile in with him, won't you? There are seven of the priest class in this spot alone. If you all die here, your chain of command falls to pieces. If I want my life easy, I really ought to just kill every last one of you right here."
I sneered at the priests and a few of the warriors, their Phase Power churning as they fought to get free of the Blue Space Wall. Kalka-kum flinched, startled, and bowed her head once more.
=I swear, upon my honor and upon this existence I have offered up to the One, that our faction will not oppose the actions you take in keeping with the cause you hold.=
Kalka-kum really was sharp. Quick, the way she caught the intent buried in what I'd said.
Her robe, the color of the edge of dawn, was a ruin of dirt, and she paid it no mind—sprawled with her limbs flung out like the lizard mounts behind her. I looked down at her, then turned to Franc, and we settled it without a sound, by lip-reading alone.
"What do we do?"
"If we are to anticipate the conditions for the Dragon God's appearance, it would be right to hear Kalka-kum out. That is what you are aiming for as well, is it not, Seoha?"
"Yeah."
"For now, let us release only Kalka-kum's faction."
"Okay."
Once that exchange was done, I turned back to Kalka-kum where she lay pressed flat, put on the air of a man granting a favor, and spoke.
"Fine. Point out your faction, and I'll let that lot go."
=I... thank you.=
Relief that her plea had been heard warred on her face with self-loathing—that she should have to survive so wretchedly, groveling like this. Above all, though, I could see her fear of the Blue Space Wall, the thing that had pinned so many priests and warriors without letting them so much as twitch.
Weary-faced, Kalka-kum pointed out the blinking Sabi one by one, and as I released each one she named, I noticed Alkema watching me with desperate eyes, as if there was something she badly needed to say. I dismissed the Space Wall wrapped around her down to just below the neck, and a frantic voice drove straight into my ear.
=Lord Seoha, I beg you!! Please take only my life and my father's, and I implore you—release the rest of our race!!=
The volume was enough to ring in my ears. I winced, and Kalka-kum, mid-pointing, turned to look at Alkema with a gloomy face.
"Is your race the sort that throws its convictions aside over a word or two, the moment death is in front of it?"
=...=
=...=
Hm. I'd only asked. Alkema and Kalka-kum both hung their heads as if a blade had been driven into their hearts.
I left Alkema there, bowed and speechless, and finished releasing every Sabi Kalka-kum had named. The count came to eighty-eight. The ones freed from their bonds either glared at me, furious at having lost without ever starting a fight, or looked on in resignation at the kin who hadn't been released, sorrow in their eyes.
I watched that a moment, made up my mind, and spoke.
"I'm not fond of massacring a race intelligent enough to hold a conversation, so I'll give the ones involved a choice as well."
=...!!=
At my words Alkema's head snapped up. I released her from the Space Wall entirely, freed the others only from the shoulders up, and went on.
"From now... until the sun sets, I'll give you time. Try persuading your kin. I'll release only those Sabi who swear, out of their own mouths and in the name of the Lord of the Great Sea, that they sever their ties with Baekcheong and will not stand against me."
Show this much consideration, and even if the Lord of the Great Sea showed up, I'd have something to say for myself.
Alkema laced her hands together, bobbed her head over and over like a waterwheel, thanked me, and rushed off to Ahumrek. She tried first for the one who could be called their leader. Win him, she must have thought, and the rest of his faction would come easier.
I didn't particularly care how it turned out, so I sat on Franc's palm and watched. For more than two hours, through Alkema's earnest persuasion and her tearful appeals, Ahumrek only shook his head from side to side, his face set like stone.
If that had been all, I might not have cared. But I noticed the warriors of his faction looking at him with faces that said they did not want to die so pointlessly—and the more coldly he refused Alkema's desperate pleas, the fouler my mood became.
Around the three-hour mark, just watching was twisting my temper. I withdrew the Blue Space Wall binding them and drove an amber Space Wall through the skulls of the quadrupedal lizards they were mounted on, killing every last one in an instant.
High-Rank Variants. However many of them there are, if they're inside the range of my Spatial Perception, I can blow their heads off in a second.
As they leapt or tumbled off the lizards sprawling dead beneath them, I lit Mana Vision, raised my killing intent, and flared high the Mana Aura I'd been keeping banked. Franc, sensing how badly my mood had soured, worked her Phase Power and spread killing intent outside her body at the same time. The High-Tier subspecies that had been sitting still caught on, and tactfully began pouring out killing intent of their own.
Judged by rank alone, the killing intent of thirty-six of the Highest Tier left Ahumrek's faction—and Kalka-kum's with them—frozen like frogs before a snake, crawling and shivering where they were. I looked at Ahumrek, locked stiff in it as if he couldn't breathe, packed Phase Power into my throat, and shouted, cold.
I drew every drop of TP I had into my palm and began forming a Mana Bullet mk2. A vast quantity of TP surged in, and a bead dark as pitch swelled enormous above my hand. Honestly, the method was extremely inefficient. But for threatening the ones who seemed able to sense the strength of Phase Power, I figured it would be more than enough.
And just as I'd expected, their minds frayed under our killing intent, Mana Voice threw them into confusion, and once they felt the immense TP gathered in the Mana Bullet mk2, they began to panic.
Alkema came running so hard the netlike garment wrapped around her body was fit to tear, her face rigid with fear. She threw herself flat again and cried out, too tense to hold her pitch.
=A-Akur Seoha! There is still a great deal of time before the sun sets!! P-please, kee— k-keep the promise you made at the first!!=
=U-ugh.=
At that thunderclap of a roar, Alkema looked like she was about to piss herself—and still she didn't give ground.
=B-but you p-promised to give us time until the sun sets! K-keep your promise!!=
And I didn't withdraw the Mana Bullet mk2, now grown as large as my own body. I left it floating in front of them, plain for all to see.
That was when it started. Kalka-kum joined in persuading Ahumrek, and Ahumrek began to listen to her, and to Alkema.
And when not a speck of sunset remained, Ahumrek finally turned, under the two of them pressing him together. The remaining eighty-two Sabi turned with him, entered Kalka-kum's faction, and swore as I had demanded. The persuasion was over.
By the time the sun had sunk fully behind the western ridges and darkness came on fast, 172 lizardfolk of every color stood before my eyes beside their dead mounts, wearing the air of a beaten army.
"What about the rest of Ahumrek's faction? If they don't attack, I'll leave them be—but start killing the ones who come at me, and your faction might charge in with them, Kalka-kum."
=By whatever means I must, I will see to it that they do not stand against you.=
"You'd better."
=I-I will persuade them. Without fail.=
Perhaps feeling how cold my voice had gone, Kalka-kum spoke again, as if binding herself to the vow a second time, then turned at once, chose two of the priest class, and ordered them sent ahead into the city to deliver the news.
I watched the two of them scramble toward the city, then asked Franc.
"A little disappointed, Franc?"
"Pardon?"
"That was a chance to bag 344 aberrants, and now it's gone."
"No. I am not particularly disappoin— I am, a little. But it is better that we reduce the chance of the Dragon God appearing as far as we can."
"True enough."
Perhaps because I'd been massaging her scalp these past few days, Franc's hair had grown out into something of a shaggy mop. That boyish mess, laid over her clear, fresh face, left her looking uncannily otherworldly. I sat atop her head, breathing in a pleasant scent, and watched the Sabi running on ahead.
The last threat, the last bit of intimidation, had landed like a critical hit. I could face Baekcheong without having killed a single Sabi. And still I wondered if this was really the right thing. We might have to fight later, and leaving them that opening sat uneasy in me. They were afraid of me now, following along meekly enough—but give it time, and they might burn bright with hatred...
=Akur Seoha. Let us depart.=
"Lead the way."
Kalka-kum had come over to say it—she must have settled what to do with the lizard mounts I'd killed—so I set them at the front, and Franc followed with the legion of High-Tier subspecies.
We ran for a dozen minutes, and the nearer we drew to Mt. Veltical, the less it felt like a mountain at all. It was a mountain. And yet it had begun to feel like the land itself, folded up into the sky. It was unmistakably a single peak. So why did ravines and slopes crowd my eyes, as if a whole range had been gathered into one?
I took in a landscape like the Grand Canyon carved along the mountain's skirts, and before I knew it we had reached the entrance to the Sabi's city. In the greatest of those ravines and slopes rose a stone wall of staggering scale, and an arched gate tens of meters high. Something murmured beyond it.
I checked with Spatial Perception. An enormous number of lizardfolk had gathered behind the gate, packed into a crowd. I jumped down from Franc's head and walked toward the arch, and the Sabi assembled there looked at me the way one looks at a curious beast—while the gazes they turned on Franc were full of fear.
Every last one of them was badly afraid of her, and I was wondering whether the Sabi had once been badly burned by a giant, when Ahumrek and Kalka-kum ran quickly to the front and shouted to the gathered crowd. I strained to hear. It was a cry that the Sabi would not step into the tangled score of favor and grudge between me and Baekcheong—and a declaration that they would invite us as honored guests of Hebelt.
So this was the entrance to Hebelt? The moment Ahumrek's cry stopped, thousands of Sabi raised both hands and roared as one. It was a sharp, high keening that scraped at ears not made for it. I frowned, just a little, and as if by prior agreement they shut their mouths. A hush fell over the place, as if no one had ever cheered at all.
Through Spatial Perception I watched Ahumrek secretly sigh at that reaction. When I started toward Hebelt, the gathered Sabi parted left and right like the Red Sea, opening a path through the gate.
I followed Ahumrek, Kalka-kum, and Alkema into the city of stacked stone, and it was... vaster than I had imagined. Wherever there was a place to stand—in the trees, on the roofs, along the cliffs—Sabi had flocked in clusters, and every one of them turned eyes on me and Franc in which curiosity and fear were mixed.
The whole Sabi race was ninety thousand? The crowd gathered here alone was already past that.
As we walked the stone-paved road between the ravines, Alkema, beside me, began to tell me about Mt. Veltical. The mountain, she said, was wholly the domain of the Sabi: roughly 480 kilometers across and 47 kilometers high, by estimate, and extremely steep. Its skirts held many places where ravines and cliffs had formed, like this one, and the labor class among their kin built their homes in such spots.
I recorded the scene on my Certifier—stone buildings of lizardfolk packed dense through the vast ravine—and looked carefully around. Fortunately, the places they called roads were wide enough that Franc had no trouble walking them. But with every step the stone paving caved in the shape of her foot, two or three meters deep and some five meters across, and I thought the cleanup was going to be a pain.
Once we left the ravine and climbed to what could be called a ridge, a conifer forest stood thick, grown tall and spread wide. Beneath it, some houses were built on the ground and hidden by the trees; some had been made by digging into the mountainside and building inward; and where the ground stood high, some had been dug down into the earth. Overall it was a landscape like a Swiss mountain village, spread across a span of dozens of kilometers.
=This is where the artisan and producer classes live. Like the homes of the labor class, they are built of stone—but they carve their own patterns into the outer walls, to mark their class.=
Listening to Kalka-kum, I walked the main road and looked at the houses nearby. Strange pictures really were carved into them with care, and they looked a little more antique than the buildings packed tight near the gate. I toured the city as the explanation went on: a cool atmosphere of stone in strange harmony with the conifer forest, woven together with the particular liveliness of a city where an intelligent race lived.
Most of the houses the Sabi lived in were single-story buildings about five meters high. Inside, they were divided into rooms like a human home—bedroom, sitting room, kitchen, toilet, storage—modest enough, but where they lived and what their outer walls looked like changed with class. The higher the class, the higher they lived, and they announced the residents' rank by carving all manner of splendid sculpture into the walls.
It really felt like stepping into a city of some ancient civilization. If the phase scholars ever learned of this, there'd be an uproar.
"But that'd turn into a hassle, so I'll pass."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing."
I waved a hand at Franc, who'd reacted to my muttering, and went back to looking over the city. Every house had a beast pen about the size of the house itself, and I'd wondered what those were for. I was told they were where the Sabi raised the Dilaik—the quadrupedal lizards they favored as mounts. Where humans had horses, the Sabi had the Dilaik.
A Dilaik was, quite literally, shaped like a wingless dragon. It ran on four legs, balancing with its tail, and its speed was on the level of a decent sports car. So that was how they'd blown through something like a hundred kilometers in a blink.
Whether they were overwhelmed by the thirty-five High-Tier subspecies following behind us, frightened by the sight of Franc, or simply forbidden—as the labor class—from climbing to where the upper classes lived, the Sabi who had crowded the gate's approach all fell away once we left the ravine and climbed the ridge. Not a single Sabi stood out on the main road we walked. But Spatial Perception showed them plainly enough, hidden inside the houses or up in the trees, watching this way with curious faces.
So a difference in class showed itself as a difference in conduct, too.
And so, as I was touring Hebelt, Kalka-kum and the others guided us to a massive hole a hundred meters across. Only Kalka-kum, Ahumrek, and Alkema remained beside us. Apparently the only Sabi permitted to come here were the priest class, and the groups the priests commanded directly.
=This is the God's Road, which leads to God's Land. Lord Baekcheong cannot move on his own, so one hundred and five of our kin are carrying him toward God's Land. Follow the God's Road, and you will be able to meet Lord Baekcheong. However...=
The God's Road, leading to God's Land. Perhaps so as not to provoke me while I stared at that enormous cave, Kalka-kum watched my face and opened her mouth with great care.
=I humbly beg that you extend the magnanimity of the strong to them as well.=
"All right. I won't kill your kin. 'If I can help it.' But I don't know what might happen, so I can't make you a promise."
=...That will suffice. I thank you for your magnanimity.=
Kalka-kum ended it by bowing her head, hands clasped. Ahumrek looked as though his pride had taken a deep wound, but—again, perhaps so as not to cross me—he took the same posture.
A hundred and five... Probably five of the priest class. The other hundred would be warriors. Then were the seven priests who had come out to meet us all the priests that remained? I'd thought it unlike aberrants who lived with battle against other aberrants as an everyday thing, the way they bowed their heads so readily. So that was why. I gave a small nod, feeling one question settled inside me—and Alkema, who had been standing behind, stepped forward with a tense face and spoke in an earnest tone.
=If it is acceptable to Akur Seoha, may I be permitted to guide the way?=
=Alkema!=
Ahumrek was far too sharp for this to be a reaction to a simple offer of guidance. For a moment I thought he meant to shove me into a trap—but then I heard Alkema's answer, defiance spilling out of it, and knew that wasn't it.
=Why! You can guess it as well as I, Father! With Mejirok's violent temper, he will attack the Akur without a thought for what comes before or after! And then our race's precious priests and warriors...!=
...And why is she looking at me halfway through?
=If Father goes, Mejirok, who belongs to Mother's faction, will surely rise against it. Mother has too much that she must do; she cannot go. And Mejirok is fond of me, so if I am the one who goes, I believe I can calm him.=
I'd thought I caught a henpecked streak in Ahumrek, and sure enough—they were a couple. A couple?! What kind of married pair splits into opposing factions?
The father and daughter were winding up to quarrel all over again. I cut them off with a word.
"Shut up."
Then I looked at Kalka-kum, standing there sunk in gloom, and asked.
"Didn't you say God's Land was at the summit of Mt. Veltical? So why guide us into a cave?"
=At the thirty-seven-kilometer elevation of Mt. Veltical, countless magic beasts make their home. Ordinarily they flee the moment they see Lord Baekcheong, but now... We use the God's Road built into Mt. Veltical in order to avoid those monsters.=
"Here's the thing, though. My fight with Baekcheong was about eight days ago. By my reckoning, I can't understand how he still hasn't reached God's Land after arriving at Mt. Veltical."
I lit Mana Vision in my eyes and glared at Kalka-kum, the look asking whether this was a trap. She flinched, shuddered, and denied it vehemently.
=It is not so! The Manes arrived at Hebelt escorting Lord Baekcheong only four days ago! They departed the city three days ago and entered the God's Road! The God's Road is a passage built to wind around the solid bedrock of Mt. Veltical, so its total length reaches 1,730 kilometers! Escorting Lord Baekcheong, it is a distance that takes ten days at the least!=
So they'd gotten here two days ahead of me. Baekcheong's body was heavier and vaster than Franc's by a margin that didn't bear comparison. Aberrants or not, things a little under three meters tall, carrying that by hand up this mountain, wouldn't have had an easy time of it. And 1,730 kilometers on top of that? That was insanely long.
Even so, stepping into that tunnel sat wrong with me. I made up my mind. I'd go up with Franc by Space Leaping, and wait.