The Grand Elder
Six hundred and fifty-eight years, wasted.
That was the thought that surfaced in the white-haired elf, Grand Elder Ariella, the instant the drug began to loosen its hold. She had been introduced to heroin only the day before, when elves who followed Grand Warrior Marcella came running to inform on their own chief.
"Marcella means to keep the heroin the humans gave us as a token of friendship all to herself. We're finding the courage to turn our backs on her and offer it up to the elders." So they had said.
At first Ariella had thought it nothing. A trifle tossed their way by mere humans—what did it matter who held it? If she had ever wanted human goods, she would have taken them long ago.
It had been the same when the Empire first pushed into the Great Forest. The humans had come hauling coin and jewels, liquor and handicrafts, asking only to raise two logging camps on the outskirts where no elves lived. Ariella and the other elders had refused them with a snort of laughter, and a quarrel with the Empire had broken out because of it in the end.
She had assumed heroin would be no different. The young ones had made such a fuss over how wonderful it was that she had, with a show of yielding, set the pipe stem between her lips and drawn on it a few times. And the smoke she drew bestowed a grace upon Grand Elder Ariella.
Grace the Mother of the World Tree bestowed every day, of course. But the World Tree was so constant a presence that, in all honesty, it often left her unmoved. It was not a thing one ought to say—yet stare at nothing but the World Tree for several hundred years, and it could not be helped.
Heroin is different. The warmth is much the same, but—
What rankled was only that she had lived so long without ever knowing this vast, drowning pleasure, and that so little time remained in which to enjoy it. A hundred years at the outside? A hundred and twenty? She still looked young, but she was already an elf in her twilight.
Why had humans waited until now to make a thing this good? Had they devised it and spread it some six hundred years earlier, there would have been nothing to resent. The years already gone felt, all at once, bitterly unjust. Still, what was to be done?
"From now on, I'll simply have to smoke as hard as I can."
When Ariella murmured it to herself, the elders nodded in a frenzy. The one past her seven-hundredth year looked especially desperate.
And yet there was an elf spoiling the fine air of the room.
"No heroin. No heroin. Heroin is absolutely forbidden."
A green-haired elf stood stock-still before the door, muttering. Marcella—the greatest warrior of the Great Forest.
Until now they had granted her extraordinary courtesy, far beyond what her youth deserved, in recognition of her service. At the moment Ariella simply could not bear the sight of her. An elf who had dared try to monopolize the heroin. If Marcella's close aides had not found the courage—
She would have it all to herself by now. And she has the nerve to show her face.
Ariella decided to ignore her. The girl was not even worth driving out, and if she possessed any shame at all, she would simply vanish. Marcella, however, seemed unable to let go.
"Grand Elder...!"
She came striding in, eyes wide. If she insisted on making a spectacle of herself, there was nothing for it. Ariella would have to indulge her.
"What is it, Heroin?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Hm? Ah... not Heroin. Marcella. Yes. Marcella."
"You have just shown me, in action, precisely what I came to say, Grand Elder. ...I didn't understand at first either, but that heroin... haah, how am I to put it. There is a shadow in it. Smoke it, and you lose the power to govern yourself."
"There is nothing you will not say."
Misname her once, and what—she loses the power to govern herself?
Ariella's face creased, but Marcella paid it no mind. If anything she raised her voice, as though the frustration were more than she could bear.
"You must not smoke heroin...! It's poison!"
"Yes. Your subordinates were good enough to warn me you would say as much. I already know what you're truly after, so cease your lies."
"It isn't a lie...!"
Beside herself, Marcella jabbed a finger at the elders peacefully savoring their heroin—elders who had given long ages to the keeping of the World Tree.
"Grand Elder. If you have eyes, look at that."
"That?"
"Sprawled about without a shred of shame, lost in nothing but heroin...? It may feel pleasant for the moment, but soon enough it will be poison."
At that, Ariella could only let out an empty laugh. So that was it. She had meant to take the whole of it for herself under some convenient pretext, the scheme had come apart, and now she was in a temper. Marcella had always been an elf easily swept along by feeling, and a greedy one besides—like a human. Though heroin, to be fair, was attractive enough to warrant it.
"Marcella. In consideration of your past service, I forgive you."
"Forgive me?"
"I shall treat this matter as though it never occurred, so withdraw... and rest. Or take a draw here, if you prefer. Unlike you, we have no intention of keeping the heroin to ourselves. Your subordinate—Lourdes—portions it out remarkably well. ...Remarkably."
"Ha...!"
She had been generous for the sake of old merit, and yet Marcella, far from grateful, looked at her as though she were a pitiful thing. She even covered her nose and mouth with one hand, as if refusing to breathe the smoke. Still, not everything she said was wrong.
"Very well, Grand Elder. Then what do you mean to do once the heroin the humans gave you is gone?"
"What."
"Carry on in this dissolute fashion and it will last two weeks... no. It will not even last ten days. I am asking what you intend after that. For the record, the one who made the heroin is an imperial knight and diplomat who loathes us."
"...!"
"Have you considered that, Grand Elder?"
The slackness drained from Ariella's face with startling speed. Now that she thought of it, the heroin the humans had given them was a mere thirty grams. More than thirty elders, elves who held office, even young warriors with no standing to speak of—the very ones who had informed on Marcella—had shared it until only twenty-eight grams remained. Perhaps twenty-seven. At this rate it would plainly be gone in less than a week, and if more came to crave it, sooner still.
"That... I had not considered."
"I'm glad you've seen it now. It isn't too late."
Marcella sighed and launched into a plea that they stop at once and destroy what remained. The days after they stopped would be very hard, she said, but after that it would gradually ease. Grand Elder Ariella, however, had not the slightest intention of entertaining the request.
It is true the supply is short.
But if it was short, one simply obtained more, did one not? Restricting its use by bloodline and age was a method, of a sort. If the elders kept it among themselves, they might smoke for nearly a month—but that was a shortsighted move, and likely to breed nothing but discord. Negotiate with the humans, secure a greater store, and shape conditions in which they might smoke as freely as they pleased, untroubled by the fear of running dry. That was the choice befitting her as leader of the Great Forest. A thought Marcella, who knew only how to fight, could never have conceived.
Ariella declared it with a brisk, open clarity. Color rose in the faces of the elders who, even through their haze, had been watching her with a faintly taut air. One of them even swayed where she sat, humming heroin, heroin under her breath. That they were pleased, at least, was beyond doubt.
This is politics, is it not?
By way of rewarding herself, the Grand Elder packed the pipe with heroin once more. Her fourth smoke already.
"Please. Stop."
Marcella reached toward her with a contorted face, but Ariella simply ignored her and set the bowl alight with magic. The words of a young warrior who had tried to deceive the elders were not worth hearing. And above all, heroin tasted far too good. A happy hour began soon after, for everyone but Marcella.
I had known a bite would come before long. I had not known it would come this fast. Barely a week had passed since I made them a gift of the heroin.
"President Allan. Medellin is requesting communication. What will you do?"
An executor in the Grand Elder's own service, they said, had asked for a link. A discussion was required, apparently, so that the matters agreed in the peace negotiations might be advanced in a constructive spirit. The words were plausible enough, but I had agreed to nothing concrete when Marcella came. I had given her a cup of lemon tea, sent her off with a few gifts, and that was the whole of it. Showing them a deliberately bristly manner had been a bonus.
In the end they're looking for me because of the heroin.
It seemed the stuff had already reached the elven leadership. Had Marcella's party obediently offered it up to the elders, as I had told them to? Or had elders who happened upon the taste simply begun to crave it? Either way, from where I stood, it was welcome news. That did not mean I could take their call at once.
"Tell them I decline."
"Decline?"
"I don't mean a flat refusal. Tell them I am shortly to depart, in order to return to the Imperial Capital. That this is no time to discuss anything further, and that they should try again once another consul has been sent."
"Yes. Understood."
A device for letting the other side stew. An executor under the Grand Elder might be reckoned a senior official, more or less, but I had no intention of negotiating with an elf who was only carrying out someone else's orders. The answer came back at once.
"President Allan. This time a man calling himself an elder is requesting communication. Of the Olivar clan—and he was particularly emphatic that he is over six hundred."
For whatever reason an elder had stepped forward to boast of his years, but I refused this as well. I could see the rank climbing. There was no reason to answer.
About an hour later, the Grand Elder herself came forward at last. That she had agonized for even an hour was, if anything, almost commendable. The moment the line connected, I informed her at once, with perfect courtesy.
"This is Consul Allan Madoff, dispatched by imperial command. Before we enter into discussion proper, there is one request I would make of the leader of the Great Forest. ...Should you mean to raise the matter of heroin, I would ask that you kindly exclude that item from the agenda."
A remark cast out to sound them. A silence fell, and broke with absurd speed.
"Human. I understand your feelings, but I would still speak of heroin."
Already gone, the lot of them.
It seemed I would be looking at a rich harvest before long.