by Ennki Hakari
Dillan, however, didn’t pick up on my ulterior motive and graciously bowed his head with a bright smile on his face.
“Thank you. This money will probably be used to purchase wheat from the Grand Duchy of Limbult, since we have difficulty growing our own in the forests of Canada. Why don’t you stay with us for a while? I have the authority to grant you permission to come and go from Lalatoya as you please.”
“I’d like that.” I shook Dillan’s hand.
“Are you all done talking shop? It’s about time to eat. Today’s special is white stew!” Ariane’s mother bustled in as if she had been waiting for this opening. She neatly arranged steaming bowls on the table, then set down a wicker basket filled with a soft, white bread, followed by plates of salad.
Even Ponta got its own bowl of stew. The fox dove straight in to slurp it up, but quickly cried out from the heat, leaning back on its haunches to give the liquid a chance to cool.
I wavered for a moment as I stared down at the bowl of delicious-looking stew.
Dillan called out to me from across the table. “My daughter already told me about your body. You need not worry about your appearance in front of us.” He gestured encouragingly toward me.
I thought about it, then slowly took off my helmet and set it down next to me on the table.
Dillan’s and Glenys’s eyes went wide. I had to imagine that hearing about it and seeing my face in person were two entirely different things. However, they said nothing, and encouraged me to eat.
It must have taken a lot of nerve to continue on like that while a skeleton with flames burning in its skull sat across from you.
I dipped my spoon into the stew, scooped up a helping of boiled meats and vegetables, and brought it to my mouth. I could feel the buttery texture of the cream and softened meat break apart as they passed down my throat. The bread had a fruity taste to it, nothing like the hard, acidic stuff I was used to eating in the human towns. It reminded me a lot of what I used to eat back home. Ariane’s mother was quite the talented cook. It was all I could do to stop myself from shoving everything into my mouth at once.
“I can barely believe my eyes… A skeleton eating food!”
Dillan looked at me intently, stroking his chin as he muttered to himself. I completely agreed with him. I couldn’t help but wonder where this fourth-dimensional pocket that was my stomach was located.
“Well, I’m glad you liked it. Don’t be shy about having seconds.”
“Kyiii!”
Ponta responded to Glenys’s offer before I even had a chance. The fox’s small portion had cooled, and it had licked the bowl clean. It was time for more.
After emptying the rest of my stew into my fourth-dimensional stomach, I handed my bowl to Glenys. Ariane did the same.
“More, please.”
“May I ask for another helping?”
I still felt like a human, even though I was trapped in the body of a skeleton. But that feeling became so much stronger when I could just sit and eat like a normal person.
And with that, I closed out my first night in the elven village of Lalatoya.
***
The next day, shortly after dawn, Ariane accompanied her father to a tree shrine at the center of the village.
The sun hung low in the sky, and last night’s chill lingered in the air. The forest was obscured by a light morning mist, making it difficult to see anything but the branches and leaves that spread out before them, lending the scene an otherworldly air.
A small stream ran east to west behind the shrine, splitting the village in half. The forest was quiet, save for the burble of the stream and the soft calls of birds searching for fish.
A waist-high wooden fence surrounded the tree, though it clearly wasn’t made to keep anyone out. It seemed to mark the shrine’s boundaries.
Two guards stood at attention on either side of the shrine’s entrance. One of them, clad in leather armor and wearing a sword at his waist, nodded his head as soon as he noticed Dillan approaching.
“We have been waiting, Elder Dillan. The transportation point to Maple is ready for you.”
Dillan thanked the guard and made some small talk before heading into the shrine. Ariane hurried after him, eager to get this over with.
Several men followed Ariane, lugging the bags that Arc had given to the elder the previous day.
Though the inside of the shrine was rather cramped, the entrance hall’s vaulted ceilings more than made up for the lack of space. Massive pillars ran along the perimeter of the room to support the roof.
A circular platform jutted from the floor in the center of the tree, illuminated by magically powered crystalline lamps. The base of the platform was covered in intricate symbols that emitted an eerie glow.
This was the transportation shrine for the village of Lalatoya.
The first generation of elders who’d built the Great Canada Forest had placed transportation points leading back to the central hub of Maple in each village. Since then, all the elders over the last eight hundred years had looked over these points. They served a very important function by connecting all of the villages to Maple.
As Dillan approached the transportation point, a small elven man—the caretaker—stepped out of his chambers. He looked no older than forty, although unlike humans, elves rarely aged much beyond that point, even with their four-hundred-year life spans. The caretaker wore a strained expression on his face.
“I’ve finished making preparations, Elder Dillan. However, we don’t have enough fio to teleport. So I’d—”
Dillan pulled out the rune stone he had received from Arc and handed it to the caretaker.
“Please use this for the requisite fio. I’m sorry for causing you such trouble at the last minute.”
The caretaker took the rune stone and bowed his head. Dillan stepped onto the transportation point and beckoned to Ariane.
“We’re about to go, Ariane.”
The accompanying men dropped the gold-laden sacks onto the transportation point before retreating to the corner of the room.
Ariane hurried to join her father on the platform. As soon as she stood next to him, the symbols at her feet began to glow. The shrine filled with light, and for a moment, Ariane felt as if she was floating. Then the light began to fade, and she found herself in a room that looked almost exactly like the one she had been in moments earlier. However, the platform she found herself on was much larger. This new shrine was exquisitely decorated and had multiple guards patrolling a number of other large platforms, each inscribed with their own symbols.
They were now in the transportation shrine in the forest capital of Maple.
After greeting the caretaker of the Maple shrine and telling him of their business, Dillan and Ariane asked him to arrange for the sacks of gold to be taken to the central council. They exited the shrine and stepped out into the massive city.
Unlike the occasional tree houses built around Lalatoya, here there were rows upon rows of them, massive things with roads winding between. Glimpses of the blue morning sky poked through the leaf cover above, though very little direct sunlight made it through to the ground.
Everywhere Ariane looked, elves bustled about. The market was as active as ever, filled with sellers energetically hawking their wares to customers as they walked past. The sheer level of energy here would put any human town to shame. Though elves were primarily a bartering culture, here in Maple, purchases were typically made with money.
Ariane took a deep breath of the city air and stretched her arms. It had been a while since she was last in the capital.
Maple was a massive city, home to over a hundred thousand elves. Humans would hardly be able to fathom that such a sprawling hub could exist deep within the monster-infested forests of Canada.
In the eight hundred years since Maple had been founded, not a single human had ever been to the city. Even the traders from the Grand Duchy of Limbult, who carried out extensive trading with the elves, had never se
t foot inside. Only trouble could come from the humans learning of the capital. One of the reasons for this passed right in front of Ariane as she reminisced.
The man crossing her path was covered in muscle, far more than anything you’d see on a dark elf. He had a thick beard that extended past his chin and a slight point to his ears. Though only about 130 centimeters tall, there was no way anyone would mistake him for a child.
The man was a dwarf.
Dwarves had been hunted to extinction by humans due to their peerless skills in metallurgy…or at least, that was what the humans thought. If you knew where to look, you could find them living among the elves.
The great forest capital of Maple was a magical city, built using the elves’ spirit magic and the dwarves’ crafting skills. The founding elder had created this great city thanks to these abilities.
He then forbade humans from ever being brought into it.
So long as they’d been granted permission from their own elder, all other villagers were allowed to come and go as they pleased. Even in the villages closest to human settlements where trading took place, it was almost unheard of for humans to enter. For those villages farther away, deeper in the forest, it was incredibly rare to even see a human.
Arc being allowed to enter Lalatoya was a remarkable exception, made possible only by Ariane’s insistence on his behalf…and the fact that she happened to be the daughter of the village elder.
Having finished soaking up Maple’s atmosphere, Ariane hurried to catch up to her beckoning father.
Dillan weaved his way between the tree houses, expertly dodging people as he went.
The two arrived in an open field, at the center of which was a massive tree house—practically a tower—far larger than anything they had encountered on their way here. They had to strain their necks just to see the top.
A small contingent of armed men stood guard at the entrance, constantly watching over those who came and went. Beyond the entrance was a reception counter, where Dillan reported the purpose of their visit. A moment later, an elven woman came out to lead the way to their destination.
Ariane and her father followed the woman to one of the pillar-shaped rooms deep within the building. At its center stood a pedestal with a crystal sphere half-embedded in its surface. The woman touched the sphere, causing it to glow, and the entire room began to silently rise into the air, higher and higher, the entrance falling away below them.
Moments later, the room stopped its upward ascent at a hallway that ran around the inside of the massive tower. The large windows lining the hall offered an excellent view of the city below.
Off to the east, a long lake leading away from the entrance to Maple disappeared over the horizon. The lake stretched both north and south, with no end in sight. The first elder had named this expansive lake the Great Servant. It served as a vital source of water for the city in addition to providing its residents with an abundance of fish.
Ariane and Dillan watched the sunrise reflect off the Great Servant as they made their way down the hallway, eventually arriving at their destination—a pair of brightly colored doors etched with a design resembling twisting ivy.
The attendant opened one of the massive doors and notified the occupants of Dillan and Ariane’s arrival before ushering them in. Dillan and Ariane gave a firm nod as they stepped into the room.
It was sparsely decorated, coming off as quite subdued. Eleven people were seated around a large round table at the center of the room, the majority of them elves, along with the occasional dark elf or dwarf.
The men and women seated at the table were the ten high elders who made up the central council that governed not only Maple, but all of the villages in Canada. The chief elder was a third-generation descendant of the great elder, Evanjulin. His name was Briahn Bond Evanjulin Maple, and he appeared to be around forty years old. He wore his green-tinted blond hair long, tied back in an array of colorful ribbons.
“Elder Dillan of Lalatoya.” The chief elder’s voice carried across the room. “I take it you are here to report on your operation to rescue the enslaved elves? It was hardly necessary for you to come all the way here to speak directly.”
Ariane was surprised to see how nervous her normally unflappable father looked as he responded to this inquiry. However, as the conversation turned to what had happened with the marquis, her face clouded over, and she averted her gaze to the ground.
After Dillan finished with his report, the room fell into a deep silence, the sound of someone shifting in their seat echoing noisily.
Finally, the chief elder spoke. “Well, you rescued the slaves, and even saved two others who had recently gone missing.”
Once the silence was broken, a flurry of voices poured forth, as if the floodgates had been opened.
“The problem, however, is what happened with the marquis when you saved those two. It seems rather careless, no?”
“They were the ones to break a four-hundred-year-old treaty. In light of that, I hardly believe they’re in a position to object.”
“Hold up! The marquis’ involvement in this slave trading is more than sufficient grounds for war! Did they forget what happened six hundred years ago when they challenged us on the field of battle and the country was ripped in two?”
“To us, six hundred years is our parents’ generation. But to humans, it’s nothing more than a story. An amiable relationship with the humans is impossible.”
“Hmph. Then I suppose they wouldn’t mind if we restricted their rune stone supply.”
The high elders began shouting in order to be heard over the angry din filling the room.
Dillan and Chief Elder Briahn both sighed deeply as they watched the mayhem unfold.
One of the elders spoke up with a possible resolution. “Why don’t we write a letter to the Rhoden Kingdom explaining the situation?”
Another elder, a large dark elf, objected. “We have no need to explain ourselves! If we send a letter, then we’re telling them that we were the ones responsible for this attack. We’d be better served by staying silent!” The purple-skinned elder was strong and fit, with a fierce look on his scarred face. Ariane turned to face the man who was trying to protect her. She knew him well.
Fangas Flan Maple was Glenys’s father, making him Ariane’s grandfather and Dillan’s father-in-law. On this council, he represented the dark elves.
One of the other high elders furrowed his brow and made a sarcastic remark.
“You’re only saying that to protect your own flesh and blood, the perpetrators of this act. Why, I—”
The man stopped himself mid-sentence as the muscular Fangas shot him a look that could have slain a monster.
Briahn, who had been observing the proceedings as they grew ever more hostile, cleared his throat. “Fangas, this is no place for intimidation, or other such disgraceful behavior.”
As if a steam valve had been opened, the slowly building pressure in the room released in an instant. Fangas bowed his head in apology. Though Ariane appreciated her grandfather’s attempt to protect her, she once again lowered her gaze in shame at having put him in that position in the first place.
After a moment of silence while Fangas quietly sulked in anger, one of the high elders spoke up again. “What Elder Fangas says is true. We struck a winning blow against those who had violated our treaty in order to kidnap our fellow elves.”
The room erupted into boisterous arguments once again, repeating the same opinions as before.
The discussions continued into the afternoon and through a lunch break until a consensus was reached, though it was hardly a productive solution.
“So, for now we’ll just…wait and see?” Dillan spoke aloud to himself as he and Ariane descended through the pillar.
There had been precious little contact with the Rhoden Kingdom since the war six hundred years ago.
Duke Ticient had opposed fighting with the elves and broken off from the Rhoden Kingdom in order to create the Grand D
uchy of Limbult, which was why the elves now only traded with the people of Limbult.
During the war, the Royal Army and the armies of Rhoden’s other nobles had lost over half their forces. They’d been on the verge of total defeat when, luckily for them, the Revlon Empire had broken out into a civil war over the line of succession, causing the empire to split into two. The fierce, constant battles right on their doorstep had forced the Rhoden Kingdom to put off their war with the elves.
Four hundred years ago, Rhoden had offered a formal apology and, as a sign of their sincerity, entered into a treaty forbidding the enslavement of elves.
The prevailing opinion among the current council was that, although the assassination of the marquis might have been excessive, Rhoden was also partly to blame and wasn’t in any position to complain. The elders ultimately resolved to prepare in case a formal envoy arrived to inquire about the situation.
“I’m so sorry about what happened, Father.” Ariane, who had been silent throughout the entire proceedings, finally spoke up.
She hung her head, still averting her eyes, painfully aware that all of this was due to her actions. Dillan, however, smiled ruefully and brushed back her hair. It was a beautiful shade of white, just like her mother’s.
“I understand, Ariane. You’re still so young. Besides, this whole issue is far from over, no?”
He pulled the purchase contracts from his coat pocket and offered them to her. During the discussion, Dillan had been instructed to conduct an investigation into the people mentioned on the contracts.
“You’ve properly apologized, so I’ll be asking you to continue your investigation. I’d also like to formally request that Arc join you. He’s been such a great help so far.” Dillan’s shoulders slumped slightly. He looked exhausted. “But enough about business. That meeting took far longer than I anticipated. Unfortunately, we won’t have much time to meet with Eevin.” Eevin was Dillan’s other daughter, Ariane’s older sister.