15-30. Both Sides of the Coin

“Things are different here,” Tisk said as they approached the gate. “Just be ready for it. And don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Different how?”

“It’s…more stratified.”

Elijah didn’t like the sound of that. “How so?”

“There are parts of the planet that are inaccessible by anyone but dragons,” she explained. “And there are parts of those areas where access is tightly controlled. Even dragons only get in if they have the appropriate permissions. Usually because they belong to the right families.”

“And if I happen to wander?”

“Don’t.”

“But if I do?”

She sighed, then rubbed the area between her eye ridges. “Just don’t, Elijah. They might just imprison you, but they might decide to destroy you instead. Trespassing on imperial grounds is technically a capital offense. Execution is well within their rights.”

“But let me guess – even if it wasn’t, nobody’s going to make much of a fuss, right? Not against the people in charge.”

She nodded.

Elijah sighed. It seemed that corruption was just as ingrained in capital culture as it was with the tournament. A frustrating realization, but not really surprising. After all, if the empire had an issue with it, they wouldn’t have allowed Cyran to cheat during their battle. But they had, and what’s more, they’d seemed very put out by the fact that Elijah hadn’t cooperated with their plans. His victory had been met with disdain rather than celebration, telling him all he needed to know about the situation he could expect to find in She’evoth.

He could already feel the headache coming on, and there was a part of him that just wanted to turn around and head back to Esik. He could work on his cultivation, then figure out a plan for further advancement. There were towers and Primal Realms in Kirlissa’s domain, and Elijah felt certain that she would not begrudge him their use.

But as much as he wanted to avoid the problems that came with She’evoth, racist dragons, and politics, he knew he couldn’t do that. For one, it would reflect poorly on Kirlissa. For another, it would require him to abandon a truly magnificent opportunity. He still wasn’t sure what to expect from the Fourth Treasury or the First Fang, but everyone seemed to think they were both special.

He wouldn’t stop kicking himself if he refused either.

“Well, let’s hope some transcendent doesn’t decide to squash me like a bug,” he said.

“Oh, they wouldn’t squash you,” Tisk pointed out. “They’d disintegrate you.”

“Comforting.”

“Down to the last atom.”

“That makes me feel so much better.”

She punched him in the shoulder. “Here to help!”

The caravan slowly inched forward over the next hour until, at last, they reached the gate. It was plainly very old, just like the one leading into K’kayix, though it had been polished until it gleamed. However, passing through it was no different than any other gate. The only difference was when Elijah reached the other side, where he found himself within an enormous cavern.

The ceiling was miles above, reminding Elijah of some areas of the Hollow Depths. Though instead of rough stalactites, it had been worn smooth by tens of thousands of years. Interestingly, what looked like basalt was marbled with rivers of igneous rocks that gleamed dully in the cavern’s lights, which were provided by floating balls of ethera.

The space was only about a mile wide, and it was clearly meant as a continuation of the Coreway, which had been divided into multiple lanes. Up ahead, Elijah saw that the avenue split into dozens of branching paths that presumably led to different parts of the city.

It was predictably congested, though the traffic jam had loosened slightly after passing through the gate. From atop Mona’s back, Elijah’s gaze slid past more than a hundred lanes to take in the impressive sight of the cavern. He continued to study it until the caravan reached one of the turnoffs, which curved into a well-carved tunnel.

The passageway was just large enough to accommodate the ekolasi and the wagons, leaving only a little space above. That made the following trip feel more than a little claustrophobic. Elijah had been in worse situations, so he chose to simply grin and bear it rather than complain.

They followed the tunnel for almost an hour until it branched off into another one. Then another after that. As they went, Elijah focused on the density of the ethera, which was comparable to that of Kirlissa’s palace. Slightly thinner, but not by much.

Elijah was relieved to sense a significant thread of nature as well, which put him in a much better mood than when they’d first arrived on K’kayix. By Elijah’s reckoning, it took most of the rest of the day for them to finally reach their destination, which was a massive yard containing too many wagons to count. There was also a paddock containing more than a hundred ekolasi nearby, with enough space that the huge creatures weren’t even remotely crowded.

Someone is making money from this copied chapter, and it isn't the author who wrote it.

Instead, they grazed on scrubby grass or lounged around a massive mushroom near the center of the field. Elijah sensed Mona’s excitement at the prospect of joining the rest of the herd.

But she was a disciplined beast, and she guided the wagon to a huge loading dock attached to an equally sizable building. Even as she backed the caravan car into place, Elijah saw thousands of people emerge from within the building. With practiced precision and endless efficiency, they immediately got to work unloading the wagons.

And considering that it was spatially enchanted to hold many times its apparent volume, that task would necessarily take quite a while. Elijah had never gotten a true estimate, but he suspected that each one of those wagons was capable of carrying as much as one of Earth’s massive freighters.

Elijah offered to help, but the workers just looked at him like he’d gone crazy, then refused. It only took a few minutes for him to figure out why. Part of it was because he was plainly a dragon, but mostly, it was because he’d just get in the way. Each one of those workers was capable of carrying truly impressive weights, but their true value came from their knowledge.

Simply put, they knew where everything was meant to go, while Elijah would have to be shown. And given the size of the warehouse, that would doubtless take quite a while. Taking the hint, Elijah chose to help Tisk grooming Mona.

Once the wagon was unloaded, the ekolases led the wagon to a slot for storage before she was allowed to join the herd in the field.

“Never get tired of that,” Tisk said, watching Mona frolick like an excited puppy.

“An animal that big shouldn’t be able to move like that,” Elijah remarked, a wide grin on his face. “So, what’s next for you?” he asked Tisk.

She shrugged, leaning against the fence that encircled the field. “We’re going to be here for a while, and then it’s off to the next destination,” she answered.

“Where’s that?”

“You know what? I’m not sure,” she answered. “We’ll just have to see.”

“Do you ever want more than this?”

“Not really. I get decent experience. The pay’s not bad. With any luck, I might reach deity in a few decades. A century at most. Once that happens, I get a pay bump. Maybe I’ll start a family then. Raise a bunch of little dragons.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

“You offering something?” she asked, waggling her eye ridges at him.

Elijah rolled his eyes. “I thought you didn’t like my kind,” he said. “Something about fleshy bits being gross, right?”

“They are. Give me hard scales any day of the week. If you know what I’m saying.”

“I really don’t.”

“Well, there’s this –”

“I didn’t say I wanted to know.”

“Are you blushing?”

“No.”

“You are!”

Elijah shook his head, saying, “This is definitely not how I imagined this going.”

“You should have,” she countered. “There’s no way I was going to let this get all mushy.”

That drew a chuckle from Elijah. “Fair enough,” he said. Then, without warning, he wrapped his arms around the drake and hugged her close. “Going to miss you.”

“Ah. There it is. The mushiness.”

She awkwardly patted his back.

When Elijah released her, he said, “Don’t hesitate to message me, okay? I might not respond immediately, but I’ll get back to you. And if you need help with something, just ask.”

“Same,” Tisk said. “Not really how I expected this trip to go, but I’ll take it. See you later, Elijah Hart es Vyrin.”

“You don’t need to use the last part.”

“Yes, I do. So does everyone else.”

At that, Elijah just shrugged, then turned to walk away. That was when he realized that Mano was standing just outside the range of Soul of the Wild. His halberd rested on his shoulder.

“Ah. That explains that,” he said. When they were alone, Tisk might not use his full name. But with Mano hovering over everything? She’d never forget to include his family name.

Elijah gave Tisk one last wave, then joined Mano. “What’s up?”

“We are expected in the city.”

Elijah narrowed his eyes, saying, “I thought we were in the city.”

Mano gave a chuckle. “No. This isn’t even the outskirts. Come, brother.”

Then, he strode away, his long legs rapidly eating ground. Elijah hurried to keep pace as they crossed the yard to an attached tunnel. This one was much smaller, with square walls and elaborate designs decorating each support pillar. Any other time, Elijah might have stopped to study it all, but Mano seemed disinterested in dallying.

The hall only went on for a mile or so, which meant that they soon reached the end. There, they found a silver disk waiting for them. As it turned out, it was meant for conveyance.

Mano planted himself in the center, unconsciously striking a heroic pose that made him look like a conqueror. Meanwhile, Elijah stood beside him as the platform took off, quickly reaching a velocity of hundreds of miles an hour. Despite that, no wind touched them. In fact, Elijah couldn’t even tell that it was moving at all, save that he saw the tunnels flashing by.

It stopped more than half an hour later when they reached another cavern. This one was clearly meant as a station of sorts, connected to dozens of other tunnels. Elijah wouldn’t have categorized it as busy, but he did see hundreds of figures passing through the area. Some disembarked similar platforms to the one carrying him and Mano, but others boarded other, much larger disks. Still others headed to a nearby gate, which was guarded by a handful of powerful-looking drakes.

That turned out to be their destination.

For once, Elijah was the patient one, which told him that Mano was unused to being made to wait. Probably a rare occurrence for a transcendent. Either way, it wasn’t that long before it was their turn.

Mano stepped forward first, and the tetradrak in charge waved him inside.

However, when it came to Elijah’s turn, the guard looked him up and down and said, “Be on your way.”

“What?”

“There an issue, half-scale?” the tetradrak asked, radiating the aura of a mid-tier deity. “Only true dragons allowed past this point.”

Elijah had no idea how to respond to that.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to.

Mano rested his hand on the tetradrak’s shoulder. The deity held up for less than a second before he collapsed, unconscious before he hit the ground. Calmly, Mano asked, “Is there an issue? Brother, come along while they figure things out.”

Though he wanted nothing more than to complain, he chose not to. Instead, he just stepped over the fallen tetradrak and followed Mano inside the station. He barely saw his surroundings as they passed through. Sure, he noticed the elaborate architecture, the crowd, and the alert guards, but he didn’t really pay them any mind. Instead, his thoughts centered on the previous encounter.

It was clear that Tisk’s warning was more than warranted. Elijah hadn’t even arrived in the city proper, and already, he knew that She’evoth would prove to be a minefield of politics, racism, and every other problem he could imagine.

More than anything, he wished he could just skip it all, get his rewards, and head home. But that just wasn’t how things worked.

Mano seemed to understand the issue, and he didn’t speak as they passed through the station.

Elijah was so preoccupied that he was entirely unprepared for the sight that greeted him on the other side of the exit. When his mind caught up to it, he couldn’t contain a subtle gasp.

“Welcome to She’evoth,” Mano said. “A polished turd of a city.”