The Shortcut
Three days had already passed since Grand Warrior Marcella was stripped of her post.
Grand Elder Ariella took up her heroin pipe with perfect composure.
It was a pipe of exquisite make, worthy of her station — a gift the Empire had offered up while begging the elves for peace.
From the start, it was absurd that I ever smoked while minding my step.
Marcella. A mere stripling in her hundred-and-nineties, pressing the elders who had guarded the World Tree through the long ages? All because they had smoked a little heroin to lift their spirits? She was rather skilled in battle — no, the most capable warrior among all the elves — but martial prowess was something one accumulated of its own accord over long years of keeping the forest. The Grand Elder herself had been shut away in Medellin for the last two hundred years, yet if she only set her mind to it… she would be no match for Marcella, of course, but it was still strange to boast of nothing more than fighting well.
“When one thinks on it, the very fact that we favored her until now is strange.”
“Quite so, quite so.”
“Fill it neatly for me.”
“Yes…!”
Lurde, once Marcella’s closest aide and now the Grand Elder’s adjutant, moved with languid care and began to pack the pipe with heroin. She tipped a darling little measuring spoon from side to side, matching the dose to the grain, and the art of filling it without a speck of loss was near miraculous. In truth it was nothing special; it only felt miraculous because she loved heroin that much.
Amid all this, the Grand Elder had exactly one complaint.
“Must it be ten milligrams? Is that not mere prejudice?”
“Pardon?”
“If we made the amount double, would we not be twice as happy? Because… the amount would be double.”
At Grand Elder Ariella’s question, Lurde shook her head.
“It… the instructions say that then the pleasure rather lessens. They say it is like drinking too much wine — far from growing merry, one only sickens the stomach and brings on a headache. Humans drink strong liquor to begin with, do they not? …So vulgarly.”
“Is that so.”
The Grand Elder nodded, ill-pleased. Ten milligrams was happiness enough, of course. But for one who had little time left in which to enjoy heroin, greed was inevitable.
At best, might I smoke it a hundred and fifty thousand times before I die? How vexing.
That indignation faded slowly the moment she drew in a single mouthful — the instant the pleasure of being free, at last, to indulge in heroin to her heart’s content seized her whole body. Regrettably, before she could sink fully into the rapture, an intruder appeared.
“Grand Elder. I have something to say.”
The speaker was a washed-up elf who lived in the Hohen District. One parent’s blood had been poor, so elderhood had been beyond him, yet he was clever enough that in his youth he had served in the offices. They had not met in nearly fifty years. Why appear now, of all times? Surely not over heroin?
“I am sorry, but heroin is for the Five Great Clans alone.”
“Grand Elder. I did not come for that. Marcella has vanished.”
“……?”
“I mean the Marcella the Council of Elders confined in the Hohen District. She disappeared suddenly on the very day of her confinement. It seems she has gone beyond Medellin, and I thought the Grand Elder ought at least to know, so I came to tell you.”
“Why tell me this now…?”
“I told the warden on the day Marcella fled, and I told the other elders as well, but they were so busy smoking heroin they let it pass in one ear and out the other. Just in case, I came to the Grand Elder. As I thought — you did not know.”
“…….”
Marcella had left? And without leave? Grand Elder Ariella rolled the heroin smoke about her mouth and sank into thought. To violate, of her own will, a punishment fixed by the elders’ vote — insolent, and yet somehow she could not grow angry. Even thinking of it reasonably, it did not seem a bad thing. They had seized the chance and cast her out, but Marcella still wielded an influence that could not be ignored. If she had taken herself away of her own accord, that was rather something to be grateful for.
“Is this not, if anything, for the best?”
“What did you just say.”
“No. You may go.”
The old elf who had brought the report stood blankly for a moment, then vanished. Grand Elder Ariella nodded, her face content. Heroin was delicious, the elf who had picked needless quarrels was gone, and the elves who had sided with her were fretting and doing nothing but watching which way the wind blew. Thoughts of Marcella were soon veiled in heroin smoke, and grew faint.
On the very day the sole troublemaker’s flight became known, belatedly, elves sucking heroin appeared at last in the square.
“Surely it is all right to smoke even before Mother World Tree?”
For the most part they were young elves under two hundred. Unlike the dignified elders, these did not use pipes. There were not enough pipes to go around, and they preferred, besides, to enjoy it gathered together. They heaped heroin generously upon a small brazier, heated it, and took turns drawing in the smoke, grinning into one another’s faces.
A long draw, a slow exhale. Another draw, another exhale. A draw — and then a fit of coughing.
“A cough! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. It’s a pleasant cough…!”
“…Haha.”
Young elves with dreamy faces gazed up at the World Tree — a World Tree of such majestic size that even looking up at it was a labor. Able to enjoy the World Tree’s grace and heroin’s grace at once, every face was glad. The smokers multiplied as time passed. There was no elf who tried to stop them.
On the day I belatedly obtained word of Marcella’s flight — they said they themselves had only learned of it after several days had passed — I reported to the princesses in detail, by communication, on how the enterprise was progressing. Naturally, the two princesses reacted differently.
“Well done, Sir Allan. It is somewhat regrettable that this elf called Marcella was not a little cleverer, and did not raise a civil war for us. Of course, that you achieved by your strength alone what three brigades of the imperial army could not is a remarkable thing.”
First Princess Victoria, who counted my results as a military merit.
“Such a shame I couldn’t see it with my own eyes.”
And Second Princess Siena, who simply found it amusing. Siena’s reaction was as I had expected, so I let it pass. She had not, however, merely laughed and enjoyed herself. Having heard of Marcella’s doings, she made her own estimate of the woman — “By now she must want to kill you,” she said. It did not seem she hoped the affair would grow more entertaining; she had grounds for saying so.
“Think about it, Allan. She alone beat a drug strong enough to corrupt the whole leadership at once, didn’t she? A drug dozens of times stronger than opium. I haven’t tried the stuff, so I wouldn’t know, but Marcella is clearly insane.”
“And she fell into the trap you set, thrashed around, and in the end lost her seat, right? With nothing left to lose, wouldn’t she try to take you with her?”
“How about you come back to the capital around now? The decision’s yours, of course.”
Advice to return to the Imperial Capital before Master put a blade in me.
Not without reason.
As Siena said, the chance that Marcella would come for me was high. Cast off by the leadership, her own people ignoring her warnings, and stripped of her post besides — the only means left to her was to remove the root cause. Me. The one who had made the heroin, and the one who had spread it, was me in the end. It would not be strange if she deluded herself that removing me alone would stop the drug from spreading through the Great Forest. Killing a man who had come as a diplomat would mean nothing but war, of course, but she had always been a war hawk. Better to die fighting, she would think, than to wither away.
Shall I return to the capital, as Siena says?
Leaving a single supplier behind and going… was not a bad notion. There was no need to remain here while bearing the threat of Marcella’s assassination. Slipping alone into a city where a brigade was garrisoned was madness. But Master was the sort of being who might attempt even that lunacy. Perhaps this very night she would come dancing with her blade, announcing that she meant to take my head.
“If I prepared, I might catch her — but there’s no need to take that risk.”
The Great Forest’s collapse was only a matter of time in any case. I could hole up in the Imperial Capital manufacturing heroin and come back down the moment the signs appeared, and the objective would still be met. Later I could use the heroin as bait and demand concessions, or bring an army and make a show of force against elves grown helpless — cook it to suit the moment. Marcella would hardly chase me all the way to the capital.
Remain, or return. I had been weighing the two choices for about half a day when a guest arrived.
“Boss Allan. Elves wishing to purchase heroin have come again.”
The buyer was Elder Escenia, who had come last week. It seemed they had settled on her as their purchasing agent. As before, I took up the portioned, packaged heroin and made contact with them. Even if I meant to go back, the drug still had to be sold. But this time, unexpectedly, the buyer raised a complaint. Elder Escenia burst out her grievance without so much as showing the money. Surely she had not, of a sudden, developed a conscience about heroin.
“Whatever is the matter?”
“Why must we come all the way to a human city to inquire after heroin? This is already the second time, is it not? If you truly intend peace with us, you cannot subject us to humiliation of this sort…!”
“…….”
So crossing the border to buy heroin was an insult. I stared, rather dazed, but the buyer seemed to mean it.
“This will not do as it stands, human.”
“Then what would you have me do?”
“Sell us ten kilograms or more.”
“Do you have the coin to buy ten kilograms?”
“…That. If not, then at the least we wish to receive the goods inside the Great Forest. You may install a teleportation circle at a place we designate — or you may set up a shop at one of the forward outposts you used when you coveted the Great Forest.”
“…….”
“Needless to say, the entry of armies is forbidden. If you refuse… you know how valiant our warriors are, do you not?”
Those valiant warriors of yours were the ones you purged. In any case, what she wanted was an arrangement that would let them buy heroin comfortably whenever they pleased. I did not let it show, but the proposal was extremely tempting. And, perhaps a little out of nowhere, Marcella’s face crossed my mind as well.
There’s a way to use this.
Elves mad for heroin, who had flung their gates open of their own will — and Marcella, who by now was likely steeped in venom, biding her chance. Use this situation well, and before long I might enter Medellin and look upon the World Tree. A shortcut was in sight. There was no reason to refuse it.