by Kumo Kagyu
Like the passing of a dream.
Were high elves not immortal?
To them, the life of a mortal was like the glittering of a star. They could reach out to it but not touch it. And were they to touch it, the heat of it would scorch them.
“Isn’t that what friends are?”
“…Parting will bring you sorrow,” the elf with the flower crown said. She gestured at her younger sister as if sweeping away the stars she had collected.
“I don’t really think so,” High Elf Archer said, averting her eyes just a bit. “It’s not such a big deal.”
Her tone was nonchalant; the next instant, she kicked her legs perilously toward the sky.
With hardly even enough time to think, her body floated in the air—
“The dwarf told me once.”
—but then she grabbed the branch with great dexterity, letting the momentum carry her in an arc. She did a backflip through the sky and landed beside her beloved older sister.
“He said the hangover is part of the fun of drinking.”
“…I can see it doesn’t matter what I say.” The smallest of sighs escaped the elf maiden’s lips. She looked at her beloved younger sister like the bird who cries at the moon at night. “You’ve always been this way. No matter what I say, you never listen to me.”
“Oh? And how does that make me different from you? Miss I-Ran-Away-from-the-Council-because-I-Felt-Like-It.
“He-he.” High Elf Archer let out a tiny giggle, like the chirping of a bird. Then she squinted like a cat, grinning up at her sister.
“I don’t know what you see in such a serious, hard-nosed elf like him.”
“…You’re hardly one to talk.” The older sister pulled her lips back disapprovingly, giving her sister a not-quite-gentle smack on the forehead.
Just as she had when they were little—a thousand or more years ago, when they had been playing as girls.
“Eeyowch,” High Elf Archer said, acting dramatically injured. But then she had a thought.
When had it started? When had she and her sister gotten to be about the same height?
When had it started? When had her sister and that cousin come to have such feelings for each other?
When had it started? When had she first wanted to be not the younger sister of her older sister but an elf of her own?
And now her sister was getting married. She would no longer be first and foremost her older sister, but a wife, a ruler.
It hadn’t even been several years yet that she had spent traveling, following the leaves down the current of the stream. And yet, it seemed longer than memories from a thousand years ago.
“Whatever you do, return to us safely… Because we will be waiting for you.”
“…I will,” High Elf Archer replied and then nodded.
§
“…And what exactly are we doing again?”
The elf with the shining headpiece was the picture of annoyance as he lowered himself into his chair with due grace. He had a severe beauty, like a carving of a myth. The night wind picked up his hair, and he brushed it aside again with utmost irritation. The fact that even this simple movement was filled with elegance spoke to the kind of beings that the elves were.
Sitting before him on the balcony under the moonlight were several jars of wine and a plate full of fried potatoes.
“Whaddaya mean, what?” Dwarf Shaman spoke up from among the circle of people, stroking his beard and sounding as if he didn’t think the situation needed any explaining. “On the last day of a man’s single life, he and the other men get together and drink themselves silly.”
“The wedding ceremony is several days away yet, and we are in council to boot.”
“The elves wouldn’t know a few days from a thousand years, and as for your council, it’ll go on whether you’re there or not.”
“Gods above. You dwarves are insufferably lackadaisical.”
“And you elves always miss the forest for the trees—even though you live in one!” It takes years off your life, not that you’d notice.
The elf actually appeared somewhat abashed by Dwarf Shaman’s jab. He knit his brow in a show of frustration, causing Lizard Priest to roll his eyes.
“Well, one does drink wine before going into battle,” Lizard Priest said. “You may consider it our way of rallying your spirits, if you prefer.”
“Or perhaps the elves have no such custom?”
The elf with the shining headpiece allowed grudgingly that they did.
“Hence, I do not refuse you, but…do you really mean to go?”
“Of course.”
This answer, immediate and sure, naturally came from Goblin Slayer.
The cheap-looking steel helmet, the grimy leather armor, the weapon and shield that the adventurer at the moment had set down—with all this about him, Goblin Slayer nodded.
“This concerns goblins. I will not leave even one of them alive.”
“How do you plan to attack them, then?” the elf with the shining helmet asked with considerable interest, running his tongue along his lips to moisten them. “Assuming the goblin nest is in the rain forest…”
“Hmm. By land or by water, I suppose,” Goblin Slayer replied, folding his arms and grunting. “What do you make of it?”
“I believe water is our only option. Our lady ranger may be all right, but I should wish to spare our dear cleric the humidity of the rain forest,” Lizard Priest answered without hesitation. “The terrain favors our enemy. Rather than tramping among the trees, we would do better, I think, to follow the river.”
“The problem is the raft,” Goblin Slayer said, thinking back to their journey. “It affords no shelter from arrows. It practically begs to be capsized or sunk.”
“Do we not have enough time to make some improvements?”
“The goblins know about this settlement. The sooner we can move against them, the more limited their options will be.”
“‘Swift attack is better than belated stratagem.’ Indeed, indeed.”
As they sat with their legs folded, Goblin Slayer and Lizard Priest quickly worked out a plan.
It was entirely typical how, amid the hmming and huhing, Lizard Priest craned his long neck to look over at Dwarf Shaman.
“Master spell caster, have you any little tricks up your sleeve?”
“Well, let’s see now.” Dwarf Shaman licked his fingers clean of the potatoes he’d been eating and began digging through his bag of catalysts.
At first glance, it might appear to be a collection of junk; the untutored mind would never imagine that these were magical items.
Dwarf Shaman went through his supply like a card player checking his hand, and a moment later, he gave a deep nod.
“It might be all I can manage t’get the wind sprites to deflect the arrows for us. Unfortunately, they and I don’t get along very well.” Granted all four of the great elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—were used to forge steel. Even so, the quality of his relationship with wind was another matter.
“If that’s all you need, maybe I could ask the sylphs,” the elf with the shining headpiece offered, to which Dwarf Shaman slapped his belly and replied that he would be most grateful.
In contrast to the jovial dwarf, however, the elf muttered, “It makes no sense.” Goblin Slayer looked at him.
“…If I may say so, I can’t quite believe it,” the elf said.
“Believe what?” Goblin Slayer asked.
Perhaps the groom-to-be had finally accepted the humble banquet, because he was filling a horn cup with a prodigious amount of wine.
“This is an elf village. Would the little devils really build a nest so near to us?”
He wondered, even when he had seen the riders, had witnessed how they sent the god-beast Mokele Mubenbe on a rampage.
“I just can’t bring myself to think that they would do such ill-conceived things,” he said.
“Yes,” Goblin Slayer replied. “I had the same thought.”
“Hrm…”
“Goblins are stupid, but they are not fools. They are cunning. But…”
Here. Dwarf Shaman poured him some wine. Goblin Slayer accepted it then drank it down in a single gulp.
“Do you think the goblins are smart enough to be intimidated by the elves?”
This was what it all came down to.
They didn’t think ahead but only tried to get the most out of whatever was immediately in front of them.
If they were attacked by elves, or by adventurers, they might struggle, or they might flee. If not, it meant there was only one truth for them: The stupid elves are living the easy life, so let’s attack them and steal from them and rape them and kill them.
That was all.
Why? Because the elves always made life so unpleasant for them.
Of course they would kill the elves.
Of course they would rape them.
They would bring everything they had to bear against those who scorned them as weaklings.
“Before you know it, there will be a nest near the village. First, they will steal livestock and crops, tools. Then people. And finally, your village.”
“One would never praise goblins, not in the slightest—” Lizard Priest took an appreciative bite out of a round of cheese he had brought in his own luggage, working his great jaws up and down before chasing it with a noisy swallow of wine. “—but the mind can only boggle at their motivation and greed.”
“Do you honor their greed?” The elf with the shining headpiece asked, to which Lizard Priest gave a pronounced shake of his head and said, “Of course not.”
He swept his tail along the balcony floor then spread his hands wide as if delivering a sermon. “What indeed is this thing we call greed?”
“Well, y’know, Scaly. It’s…when you want to eat something delicious, or make love to a woman, or when you’re after some money.”
“Mm. Appetite is a form of greed, as are our friends, our love, our dreams. Whether a thing is good or bad is a secondary or even tertiary concern.”
There was no guarantee that the strong would eat the weak, that the great would one day fall, or that the fittest would survive. Lizard Priest’s jaws came up in a reptilian grin.
“To be alive is to desire and hope, to want things; the way of life is for even the smallest insect on a blade of grass to throw himself into living.”
“…” The elf with the shining headpiece paused then grunted appreciatively. “I’m not quite sure that applies to elves, though.”
“Gods. You’re all impossibly slow to act. What, are you too fat to move? Fatter than a dwarf? Hmm?”
“Mortals are simply too hasty.”
“That’s why it takes you so many centuries to pick a wife, eh?”
“Hrm… Watch your mouth,” the elf said crossly. Lizard Priest stuck out his tongue gleefully and poured more wine.
“Here, here, have a cup.”
“…Very well.”
The elf drained the horn. His cheeks were already starting to glow.
“If you don’t mind my saying so—you all know about my sister-in-law, I suppose.”
“Yes.” Goblin Slayer nodded. “We have known her for a year… A year and a half now.”
“I’m marrying her older sister.” He reached out, almost annoyed, and took one of the fried potatoes; he stuffed it in his mouth and frowned. “…Too salty.”
“I love a bit of saltiness, myself,” Lizard Priest said, happily tossing handfuls of the snacks into his jaws.
The elf with the shining headpiece, abandoning his august dignity of moments before, put his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands.
“The younger sister is who she is, but then, so is the elder. I’ve had no end of worry, but I don’t get the feeling that I’m much liked.”
“Hoo, hoo-hoo,” Lizard Priest laughed. “Milord Goblin Slayer knows something of being the younger brother. Perhaps he might have some thoughts?”
“Ho,” the elf said, a sense of closeness obviously piqued. “He has an elder sister?”
“So I once heard, at any rate.”
“…I wonder,” Goblin Slayer muttered then took a swig of wine. “I was never anything but trouble for my older sister.”
“A brat always causes trouble, that’s the way of things,” Dwarf Shaman said as he added a generous amount of wine to his empty cup. His bearded face had a soft smile on it. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I don’t agree.” Goblin Slayer drained another cup, shaking his head gently. “If I hadn’t been there, she would probably have left the town.”
And that would have been better for everyone. He groaned. Then he emptied another cup.
Dwarf Shaman poured him some more wine, and Goblin Slayer drank that, too.
“I was the one who trapped my sister in the village.”
“Speak not such foolishness,” the elf with the shining headpiece snorted. “Do we ask the worth of a flower that withers in a year? What is the meaning of the seed that falls in the sand? Can you weigh the life of a rat against that of a dragon?”
“What’re ya goin’ on about?” Dwarf Shaman said, still happily drinking his wine.
“It is an elvish aphorism,” the elf replied, as if bestowing upon them a secret. “Wheresoever and whatsoever one be, no matter how one lives or dies, all is equal. It is a precious thing.” He held his pointer finger straight up, making circles in the air. It was an elegant and beautiful gesture. “All things are one in life. Would something as simple as location change how happy one was?”
“I see,” Goblin Slayer said, nodding. “…I see.”
“I should think so,” the elf with the shining headpiece said then breathed in deeply. The night air filled his lungs.
Love is destiny
destiny is death
Even a knight who serves a maiden
will one day fall into death’s clutches
Even the prince who befriends a Sky Drake
must leave the woman he fancies behind
The mercenary who loved a cleric
will fall in battle pursuing his dream
And the king who loved the shrine maiden
controls all but the hour of their separation
The end of life
is not the last chapter of an heroic saga
So the adventure called life
will continue to the very end
Friendship and love
life and death
From these things
we cannot escape
Therefore what have we
to fear
Love is destiny
and our destiny is death
Ho. Dwarf Shaman clapped. Lizard Priest rolled his eyes to indicate his profound engagement. The elf, having completed his song, must have felt embarrassed, because he drained his horn of drink.
“That is why I will marry.”
“…But the trouble I caused my older sister,” Goblin Slayer said dispassionately, “is part of why she never married.”
“All the more reason to repay your debt to her.”
“Yes,” Goblin Slayer said, patting Lizard Priest on the shoulder. He had much to think about, and even more to do. “That is my intention.”
Sheesh, they should leave the clerics of the God of Knowledge to do this sort of thing.
In the library in a corner of the temple of the God of Law, a nubile young acolyte pulled a face.
In any event, the books in this library were a breed apart from run-of-the-mill books (as valuable as those were).
Best were old collections of case law, but the shelves were also packed with sealed-up forbidden tomes, magical volumes, and occult texts.
Many sections of the library were blocked off with chains, but all too often, even when she could get at the books, the titles were written in incomprehensible characters.
The real cause of the acolyte’s distress, however, was the format of the books themselves.
To put i
t quite bluntly, they were heavy.
Some had rich leather pages, while others had weighty steel covers, and others still were adorned with decorations…
She had to pull those bulky volumes down from the shelf, lug them over to the lectern, and then put them back when she was done reading. It was real work, and she thought it would be better handled by a cleric of the God of Knowledge, someone who was used to such things.
…Unfortunately, there’s no choice in this case.
On this occasion, the text-house of the God of Knowledge had been attacked.
They could hardly ask those girls, battered in heart and body, to take on even more responsibilities.
And above all…
“I’m very sorry. I’ve put you to such trouble…”
“Oh, not at all! I’m just glad to be of service, even a tiny bit.”
The acolyte smiled at the archbishop where she sat in the chair, even though she knew the priestess couldn’t see it.
This honored personage came here so excited—how could I do less than this?
Sword Maiden, the woman on whose shoulders rested this entire temple, had changed much in the past year.
For the better, of course.
Until recently, she had simply tried to do too much. It was as if she didn’t quite think of herself as human.
And yet, from time to time, the acolyte saw Sword Maiden get a look on her face like a lost little child.
On quiet nights, for example.
As her attendant, the acolyte had seen Sword Maiden rush from her bed to throw herself in beseeching prayer at the altar.
But—why?
“But tell me, ma’am. Has it helped? Have you learned anything?”
“To borrow a phrase,” Sword Maiden said, a chuckle escaping her, “not even a tiny bit.”
Of late, she had shown such softness, such enjoyment, more and more often.
Over the course of the past year, she had also ceased to go to the altar in the middle of the night.
If it was really all the doing of that strange adventurer, then the acolyte would have to make sure she thanked him.
Although I have to admit, I don’t think much of her pouting like a child…