A Contrasting Reality
A Contrasting Reality
There was more than enough meat and drink.
Unexpectedly, the orcs knew their way around a kitchen, and Lakia had piled her plate high and was chewing through it with single-minded enthusiasm.
"Krrn?"
"What are you staring at."
"Kiiing..."
Even Alduin, shocked by her pace, felt his pride as a dragon slip a fraction.
At any rate, they were deep in the middle of the festival when a familiar voice spoke from behind her.
"I'm glad things worked out. To be honest, I half expected those orcs to be wiped out."
Lakia slowly drew her gaze up from the cliff's edge.
She could never mistake that voice. Always unhurried, always edged with the suggestion of a smile, always polite—and always precise in finding the one thing the listener least wanted to hear. After centuries of listening to it, she knew him from the first syllable alone.
Before she even turned, she let out a small sigh.
"...You're here."
An old elf was making his way along the stone path that led to the cliff. He stood a little taller than a human man, his long silver-grey hair loosely tied at the nape of his neck. His ears, true to his kind, still stretched long and sharp, but his face was layered with the shallow and deep wrinkles rarely seen on younger elves. In his hands, instead of a staff of pale dry wood, he carried a dark brown wine bottle and two wooden cups.
His clothes were lighter than usual, too. In place of a formal mage's long coat he wore a loose-sleeved grey garment, with only a few small leather pouches at his waist. From a distance, he might have passed for an ordinary old man arriving late to a festival—so long as no one knew he had not died for thousands of years, that among the elves he was treated as a living myth, and that if he felt like it he could turn half the gorge upside down with magic.
Kanefisara reached Lakia's side and lifted the bottle a little.
"Will you have a drink?"
"In the middle of the day?"
"The sun is nearly down."
"It's still up."
"A sun that low has no right to interfere with my drinking."
Lakia looked toward the sun hanging over the western range. It had tipped into orange, but it still lit the whole of the cliffs and the plains. If the sun had heard that, it would have had every right to feel a little wronged.
"Don't go handing out authority at random."
"Then by all means, take it up with the sun yourself."
Without waiting for an answer, Kanefisara sat on the flat rock beside her. When he uncorked the bottle, a sweet fruit scent rose with the sharp bite of strong alcohol. Mixed with the smell of roasting meat rising from the gorge, the aroma turned a little strange. He filled both cups and pushed one toward Lakia.
She almost refused—until she looked down and saw an orc hoist an entire cask and pour it straight into his mouth. Better than that, she decided. Probably.
She took the cup and sniffed it.
"What's it made from?"
"Fruit that grows in the elven forests."
"No poison?"
"Not if you drink in moderation."
"And if you don't?"
"As with all liquor, problems arise."
Lakia eyed him without bringing the cup to her lips. Kanefisara emptied his own first, the picture of a man who had hidden nothing. Only then did she take a small sip. The scent was sweet, it burned like fire going down, and a bitter note lingered on the tip of her tongue afterward. It was more drinkable than she had expected. She kept her face carefully blank, certain that admitting as much would only encourage him.
Below the cliff, the orcs' festival went on. On a plain that only yesterday had held nothing but reeds and stone, dozens of houses now stood. The thick log homes were not as refined as human houses, but they looked solid enough that an orc could body-check them without bringing them down. Broad leaves and reeds were layered on the roofs, and animal horns and strips of red-dyed cloth hung on the walls like decoration.
Wide roads ran between the houses—wide enough for two orcs to walk shoulder to shoulder without colliding. Shallow ditches had been dug along the edges for water to run, and around the village's outer edge a log fence was already half finished.
One day since permission had been granted. Strictly speaking, no more time than it took for the sun to set once and rise again. In that short span the orcs had raised houses, laid roads, built storehouses, and even finished a reed wrestling ground in the village center.
Lakia still could not quite grasp the speed of it. When they needed a wall, they hauled timber. When the ground was uneven, they lifted the big stones and tossed them aside. When a post would not seat properly, two orcs held it while a third drove it home with his fist. Work that for most races required tools, skill, and time, the orcs solved mostly with force. It was crude. And it was fast, and it was strong. With results like that, she was no longer sure whether "crude" was an insult or a compliment.
In the village center several great bonfires burned. Whole carcasses turned on spits, and young orcs ran between the houses with pieces of meat that were barely cooked. Adult orcs laughed as they clashed cups, and two warriors who had only just fought in the reed wrestling stood with their faces a mess of blood and dirt, arms around each other's shoulders. Moments earlier they had looked ready to break one another's ribs; the second it ended they were sharing a drink. Very orcish.
A few hatchling dragons had come down around the wrestling ground as well. A yellow-scaled one was taking scraps an orc child tossed it; a blue one pawed through the piled reeds at the edge of the ring. A slightly larger dragon had put its nose near a cask the warriors were lifting—then met Lakia's eyes and carefully turned its head away.
"You."
Even at that distance, the dragon froze at once.
"No drinking."
Kiiing.
"Don't give me that I-only-smelled-it face."
The dragon took two steps back from the cask. The orcs burst out laughing. Looking thoroughly wronged, the dragon pressed its tail flat to the ground.
Kanefisara refilled his cup as he watched.
"Peaceful, isn't it."
"It's only been a day."
"If they haven't killed each other in a day, that's a rather fine start."
"Why is your bar for peace so low."
"Orcs and dragons, gathered in one place."
He pointed toward the orcs and hatchlings sharing meat beside the wrestling ground.
"With that combination, the simple fact that no one died on the first day is close to a miracle."
Lakia had no good answer. Orcs respected strength. Dragons were not accustomed to handling creatures weaker than themselves with care. Both races moved before they spoke. A fight on the day they first met would have been nothing strange. If she had not seen Tualuktal drive his weapon into the earth and hundreds of orcs kneel behind him, she would not have accepted them either.
"...I looked at their combat strength," Lakia said low.
Kanefisara's eyes turned to her.
"There's no pity in it."
"Haha."
He laughed as he tipped his cup.
"I'm sure."
Lakia's eyes narrowed.
"You don't believe me."
"I do believe you."
"Your tone says otherwise."
"I mean that I believe you think so."
"That's just another way of saying you don't."
Kanefisara drank instead of answering. Lakia slowly turned the cup in her hand, watching the red liquid circle the wood.
"Orcs are strong," she said. "One adult can face three knights head-on, and numbers like theirs would be hard for an ordinary kingdom's border army to stop."
Kanefisara listened in silence.
"The gorge is wide and the land is empty. Dragons are good at guarding the sky and the mountains, but they can't make roads, work fields, or run storehouses."
Below, orcs hauling a log shouted a work call in unison. The timber was large enough that ten humans would have struggled to shift it, yet four orcs had it on their shoulders and were running with it.
"Those ones can do that," Lakia said. She brought the cup to her lips, then lowered it again. "They said if enemies enter here, they'll hold them off before the dragons even move."
"They did."
"It's to our advantage."
"Quite clearly."
"So I took them in."
Kanefisara watched her for a long moment. A little mischief still lingered in his pale green eyes, but the smile at his mouth had grown shallower.
"You already knew that, didn't you."
"Knew what."
"That even after you finished that calculation, you were still looking at their children and their elders."
Lakia's fingers tightened on the cup. Below the cliff, a young orc fell. Its knee scraped in the dirt; it scowled but did not cry. An old orc nearby pulled the child up, spat on the wound, and rubbed it with a palm. It did not look like good medicine. Even so, the child ran off again.
Lakia did not look away.
"That's part of the calculation too."
"What kind of calculation."
"If they have children, they won't leave easily."
"True enough."
"Bringing the old means they don't abandon their weak."
"A sound analysis."
"Hauling the wounded here by cart means that, at least inside their own community, they take responsibility."
Kanefisara nodded.
"All of that is correct."
Lakia shot him a look.
"Then why are you smiling."
"Because even while you explain your calculations, you're looking at them as people."
"They're orcs."
"I did not mean the word as a race."
Lakia shut her mouth. Kanefisara said nothing more. Dig any deeper into words she had offered herself and she would get irritated, and if she got irritated she might take his cup. An elf of thousands of years knew when to stop. He only crossed the line on purpose, sometimes.
A great cheer rose from below the cliff. Tualuktal was climbing into the center of the wrestling ground. The massive orc, a dark red fur pelt across his shoulders, lifted both arms, and the orcs around him raised cups and weapons together. At the edge of the round arena two warriors were loosening up again—different ones from those who had fought a moment before. One carried a mace as thick as a man's torso on his back; the other had painted red patterns on his arms and neck.
Then the drums began.
Thoom.
Thoom.
Thoom.
The orcs stamped in time. The song they raised was rough and simple, but the sounds woven through it were ones Lakia knew well.
Dragon Speech.
A shell of pronunciation with no mana, no power to touch the world. And yet hundreds of orcs were repeating the same words like a memory older than any of them.
Kanefisara listened for a while.
"Fascinating."
"You've never heard it either."
"I have never seen a record of orcs preserving Dragon Speech as ritual."
"Gargantua says he doesn't know about it either."
"If that friend doesn't know, it must be very old indeed."
Kanefisara looked down at the bottle and smiled faintly.
"My disciple becomes an orc god overnight."
Lakia turned her head.
"I'm not a god."
"And yet they call you the highest of gods, I hear."
"That's how they speak of the dragons, not of me."
"If the Mother of Dragons insists she is a being separate from the dragons, I suspect the orcs will find it a little hard to follow."
"When did I ever say I wanted to be a god."
"It is rare for those who want to become gods to become them."
Kanefisara raised his cup and tipped it lightly toward her.
"Congratulations."
"On what."
"My disciple has at last risen past Disaster Class to become an object of faith."
Lakia's brow drew tight.
"Who put Disaster Class on me."
"The consensus of various kingdoms, guilds, and scholars."
"They never even asked my opinion."
"When one grades a disaster, one does not generally seek the disaster's leave."
"Who's a disaster."
Kanefisara answered by looking past her. Behind the cliff, Alduin lay coiled, his black body the size of a small hill, golden eyes half-lidded—yet listening to every word. In the air beside him, Masor's scales briefly flipped the light and showed a steel outline. Farther still, Gargantua had become one with the mountains, covering the sky of the gorge.
Kanefisara looked back at Lakia.
"That you yourself do not fight does not make you less of a disaster."
"That's the kids being strong."
"And those strong beings all wait on a single word from you."
His voice lowered a little.
"The world will not make much of that distinction."
Lakia drained what was left in her cup in one swallow. Her throat burned. Her mood did not improve.
"So," she asked. "You brought the wine all the way up here just to say that?"
"No."
Kanefisara filled the empty cup again. This time he refilled hers without asking.
"I came to tell you to prepare for the future."
Lakia looked down at the fresh pour.
"What future, all of a sudden."
"Soon you'll have more to worry about than this."
The song below the cliff grew louder. Orc voices, drumbeats, and the vibration of stamping feet climbed the gorge on the wind. Kanefisara gestured at the scene.
"Today the orcs came. Tomorrow other races will follow."
"And that's—"
"Humans who lost their homes in war may come. Elves driven from their forests. Dwarves who lost their mines, and beastfolk who lost their masters."
Lakia said nothing.
"The Mother of Dragons who brought down an empire in a single night," Kanefisara went on slowly. "A free state that takes all races without question. A gorge no one can invade, and dragons enough to fill the sky."
His pale green eyes found hers.
"For those who have nowhere left to go, there is no better rumor."
"Rumors don't spread that fast."
"They already are."
"Who's spreading them."
Kanefisara looked toward the red flags below the cliff.
"Starting with the orcs who entered today—they will spend the rest of their lives telling people where they arrived."
He brought the cup to his lips.
"And I only pointed them a little way along the path."
Lakia's eyes went cold and still.
"...It was you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You're the one who told those orcs to come here."
Kanefisara finished his drink and smiled with perfect ease.
"To be precise, I told them that if they had nowhere to go, they should seek the storm at the western edge."
"That's the same as telling them to come here."
"The choice was theirs."
"And that's your excuse?"
"I am clarifying the facts."
Lakia glared at him for a long time. Kanefisara, an old man who had faced kings and mages and monsters for thousands of years, did not so much as blink. In the end it was Lakia who looked away first.
"How many more do you think will come."
Kanefisara's smile quieted a little.
"I don't know either."
There was no joke in the answer this time.
"But it will not be few. The world is wide, losing a home is more common than one expects, and there are always many lives that want the protection of the strong."
Lakia looked down into the gorge. The orcs were laughing. It was their first day with houses. Children ran, the old sat close to the fires, and the warriors talked about the fences and storehouses they would build tomorrow without ever setting their cups down. For them, this place was the last home that had come to them.
Taking in one band had not been so hard. Give them empty land, set the terms, open the storm—and that was that. The trouble started after.
Where to house other races when they came. What rules to set if enemies arrived together. Who to feed first if the gorge's resources ran short. Whether to make children answer to dragon law when they fought, or to honor each race's own. The moment you put a name like "nation" on something, those were the problems you would one day have to face.
Lakia frowned as the thoughts piled up.
"...My head already hurts."
"You haven't even begun."
"You're terrible at comfort."
"Because it isn't comfort. It's a warning."
Kanefisara raised his cup and quietly tipped it toward the village below the cliff.
"Even so, you'll manage."
"Based on what."
"Based on what you've done so far."
"That kind of vague faith is the most burdensome kind."
"It isn't vague."
He looked at her and smiled, calm and steady.
"You raised dragons. You brought down a nation. And even with that power, you still gave land to orcs who had nowhere to go."
"Why are the first two bundled with the last one."
"Because all of them show what choices you've made."
Another cheer burst up from below. The match had begun, by the sound of it. Two orc warriors locked around each other's waists and shoved; reeds flew in every direction, and the watching orcs repeated the old sounds of Dragon Speech like a song.
Lakia looked down at them, then set the cup to her mouth. This time she drank slowly.
"If more come," she said, "I can't take them all."
"Of course not."
"Anyone who causes trouble gets thrown out."
"As it should be."
"If they try to kill each other, I'll punish both."
"A very Lakia kind of law."
"And if they lay a hand on the dragons, that's the end."
Kanefisara's smile deepened a little.
"That, too, is a very clear law."
Lakia held out her empty cup. Without a word, he filled it again.
"And," she said, looking at the red flags below the cliff, "once they're in, I won't drive anyone out over race."
Kanefisara did not answer. He only set the bottle down and looked with her across the plain as the festival lights kindled one by one. The sun had sunk halfway behind the mountains now. Red light spread over the roofs of the orc houses, and the shadows of the great dragons stretched long across the high cliffs of the gorge.
Dragons and orcs under the same firelight. A sight that until yesterday she had not even needed to imagine.
Only after a long while did Kanefisara speak, quietly.
"That one word is enough."
Lakia tipped her cup.
"...Enough for what."
"For those who will come seeking this place."
The wind rose. The red flags snapped hard, and the orcs' song climbed all the way to the cliff top. Lakia listened to those strange, ancient syllables of Dragon Speech and swallowed her wine in silence.
The Free State of Liberia.
She had given it the name long ago. There had been a time when calling it a nation was generous, when there had been nothing here but dragons. Now the orcs had come. Soon others might follow. How many, what problems they would bring, whether she could bear it all—she still did not know.
One thing was already decided.
If those with nowhere left to go reached this place alive, she would not shut the gate for race alone.
Even knowing how many troubles that choice would bring, that part, at least, Lakia had no intention of changing.