Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 46 - Uncertain Future (Patreon)

“I don’t understand it.”

“What don’t you understand?” asked Elijah, using Dictate of the World Tree on the latest fungal colony.  To date, he’d managed to enhance twelve of them, but he knew he’d need at least a decade or two to finish the job.  That was just math.

The enormity of the task often sent him spiraling into apathy, but he had some small experience dealing with that kind of thing.  Besides, each time he finished with one of the colonies, he was rewarded with progression as well as a sense of accomplishment.  When he finished the job in twenty years, he didn’t know what he’d think.

He stepped back, then glanced at Miguel.  “Not going to answer?”

“I hate talking to you when you’re playing with those mushrooms.  You don’t listen.”

Elijah sighed, realizing that his nephew’s assessment was probably accurate.  For all that he could partition his thoughts into various leaves, he often found himself devoting the entirety of his mind to whatever task currently occupied his time.

Over the past five years, that was usually either the fungal colonies or Callux.

“Fine,” he said, pulling away.  He sat back on his heels and asked, “So, what’s up?  What doesn’t make sense?”

“The dragons.”

“Which ones?”

“You know which ones,” he said.  “They should have attacked by now.”

“They have.”

“Skirmishes.  Ambushes.  That’s it,” Miguel argued.  “There should’ve been all-out war by this point.”

“Is that what you want?” asked Elijah.

Miguel shook his head and started to pace.  “No.  Of course I don’t want that,” he countered.  “But we all know it’s coming, one way or another.  The fact that they haven’t attacked yet is troubling.  They’re up to something.”

“I mean…obviously,” Elijah pointed out.  “They’re tricksy little dragons.”

Miguel turned and narrowed his eyes.

“What?  Not a Lord of the Rings fan?  I could’ve used a Gollum voice, but I have to admit, it’s not very good.  Callux enjoys it, though.”

As it turned out, the orc child was less interested in the books than the movies.  Thankfully, someone had had the foresight to build a theater into the Vengeance.  And some absolute genius had downloaded thousands of films from the repository in Seattle and brought them along. 

Elijah could’ve hugged whoever that brave soul turned out to be.

Whatever the case, the past few years had been characterized by more of the same, albeit with a little more focus on giving Callux an enjoyable childhood.  That had always been his goal, at least to some extent, but the first couple of years had been dedicated more to learning and training.

Those aspects were still present, but they weren’t the absolute focus that they’d once been.  After all, Callux would only be a child once, and he deserved a few happy years before the reality of his power and origin came calling. 

Fortunately, he made it easy.

That wasn’t to say that Callux was perfect.  Far from it.  He was, at alternating times, frustrating, goofy, and a little mean-spirited.  However, he counterbalanced that with a good heart, dedication to whatever he was doing, and a zest for life that Elijah had rarely seen in other people. 

Elijah had truly accepted the boy as his son.

Which was what made the last couple of months that much more difficult.  At present, Callux was in Agmar with Ok’tarik, learning what it meant to be an orc.  Elijah wasn’t entirely certain that was a great idea, but he’d long ago vowed not to disconnect the child from his origin.

He was an orc as much as he was a dragon, and he needed to understand what that meant.  In the back of his mind, Elijah hoped his son would begin to understand the shortcomings of his people so that when he learned the cause of their fate, he had the context to truly comprehend what had been taken from them. And maybe help figure out how to counter the loss.

It was tragic.

But it was a necessary lesson he would one day need to learn. 

The other milestone looming on the horizon was related but equally daunting.  It wouldn’t be long before Callux had to leave Orveth Kaal.

Not because of the danger, though Elijah would’ve been lying if he said that wasn’t part of it.  It certainly was.  Yet, it wasn’t the primary reason Callux would need to leave.  Instead, that label was held by the fact that Elijah wanted the boy to experience more than an ancestral world.  That meant going to Earth where he could familiarize himself with the grove. 

It also meant going to the Empire of Scale.

After all, his training had been so far comprehensive, but it was nothing compared to what Birk could do.  Or Tura.  They would know exactly what he needed to get the most out of his potential.

Probably.

At the end of the day, Callux was unique in all the multiverse.  Elijah was certain of that much.  And there was the possibility that even those two ancient drakes would fail to train him properly.

But that wasn’t what worried Elijah.

Not truly.

What really kept him up at night was a simple question – how would the dragons react to someone like Callux?  What would Kirlissa say?  Would she see his existence as a good thing?  Or as an abomination?

Elijah had no idea, but what he did know was that the answers to those questions would dictate whether Callux would live or die.  Because as much power as Elijah had accumulated over the years, he wasn’t so delusional as to believe he could stand up to someone like Kirlissa.

Not yet, at least.

One day, though.

Hopefully, he was right about Kirlissa in that he suspected she would see Callux the same way he had in the beginning.  He didn’t expect love, but rather, a recognition of an opportunity.

Plus, he was technically family, especially by her standards.  If Elijah qualified as her son just because she’d given him a dragon core, then Callux was her grandchild by those same rules.

Those thoughts didn’t make it any easier to contemplate, though.  Maybe that was tied as much to separation anxiety as it was to any credible danger.

Perhaps both were true.

“Do you want my opinion?  It’s blind speculation.”

“Sure,” Miguel said.

“I think they’re waiting for Illska to find whatever she’s looking for,” he revealed.  Over the past few years, she’d spent most of her time searching for cultivation opportunities.  Because she’d already reached the absolute peak of the deity realm, that was the only way left to her for improvement. 

That was the path she needed to take if she ever wanted to join her husband as a transcendent.  She was close.  Even Elijah could feel that.  But being close was relative.  She needed a big push for that final stretch, and clearly, she hoped that Orveth Kaal might provide just what she required.

However, if she did find what she was looking for, she would be out of commission for a while.  Elijah’s cultivation sessions often took years.  Illska’s would be the same, if not worse.

“You think they want her out of the picture,” Miguel guessed.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Dammit.  Can’t we…I don’t know…ask her not to do it?” he asked.  “If she finds her opportunity, I mean.”

“Feel free.  I won’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to put her in that situation.  She’s on the threshold of transcendence, Miggy.  Even if it costs us everything, most people would consider that a reasonable price to pay.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“That’s because you care about the people here.  Illska does too, to a certain extent.  But if she reaches transcendence, she has a chance to alter the balance of power in the upcoming civil war.  She could change the face of the entire Empire,” Elijah explained.  “You expect her to throw that away for a couple thousand people she barely knows?  On top of that, we can always just leave.  What she’s doing is more important than guarding us against a threat we can easily escape.”

“Not without casualties,” Miguel pointed out.

“Casualties of people who knew what they were getting into when they came here,” Elijah countered.  “I know it’s harsh, Miggy.  I don’t want anyone to die either.  But everyone on that ship accepted the risks when they stepped through the portal. That hasn’t changed.”

“At least the orcs are pulling their weight.”

Elijah could only nod at that.  Now that they’d had a good opportunity to modernize their fleet, they’d once again taken to the skies.  However, they did so under Elijah’s direction, purposefully vague though it was.  And they were working with the Earth expedition, mostly cleansing cells but also helping to establish various outposts near valuable resources.

It was a good way for them to integrate into the command structure.

Of course, the alliance wasn’t without its issues.  Orcs and humans really didn’t mix well, resulting in more fights than Elijah could count.  Those had to be mediated, usually by Ok’tarik or Elijah.  The former was extremely heavy-handed in his discipline, which meant that Elijah couldn’t afford to be any more lenient.

He’d only had to execute a few orcs and exile some humans, but the possibility of more kept him up at night.

That was one of the reasons he’d so eagerly embraced the fungal colonization project.  It divorced him from the day-to-day problems that came with governing the Vengeance and the alliance with the orcs.

“Have you thought about the future?” asked Miguel.

“It’s all I think about these days,” Elijah admitted.

“For Orveth Kaal.”

“You mean what’s going to happen when we beat the dragons?”

Miguel nodded.

“I don’t know,” Elijah answered.  He had some vague plans about taking it for Earth’s benefit, but he really didn’t know what that meant.  The current shape of the expedition wasn’t really sustainable.  Nor did Elijah want it that way.  It was too valuable and too wild a space to just consume.

Then there was the Star Forge.  Carmen had confirmed that Agmar had been built around the crafting apparatus, and that it had enjoyed an extremely vague connection to the planet as a whole.  She didn’t understand it at all, but she knew that the orcs had barely scratched the surface of what it could do.  And she wasn’t much ahead of them, either.

Something told Elijah that it was the entire reason the Empire of Scale had gone to such lengths to reclaim Orveth Kaal in the first place.

Finally, Elijah had no idea what to do with the orcs.  It was becoming increasingly clear that, in their current state, they were incapable of coexisting.  Sure, someone like Ok’tarik could control them for a while, but that would only last as long as it took for a stronger orc to rise.

And left to their normal, instinctive drive?

They would destroy everything.

Elijah still hoped that Callux’s development could provide an answer, but he’d increasingly realized that his son was too unique for that.  Could he still be the missing link? 

Maybe.

But even if he was, acting on that would require centuries of hard work throughout orcish civilization.  Could Elijah commit to that?

His mind told him yes, but his heart had already begun to yearn for freedom.  Being shackled to Orveth Kaal for that much time would drive him insane.

Elijah was honest enough to admit that about himself.

So, what was the answer?  Elijah had no idea.

But in the meantime, he vowed to take things one step at a time.  First, he would finish his work with the latest fungal colony.  Then, he would take Callux back to Earth.  And sometime in the near future, he was certain that he would need to deal with the dragons – both in Orveth Kaal and in the Empire of Scale.

After that, who knew what he would do?

“I really wish Imal was here,” he admitted aloud.

“Any word on her chrysalis?”

“Five years and counting,” Elijah said, paraphrasing the message he’d received from Sara.  “No telling how much longer she’ll be in there.”

Miguel just nodded. “You’ll get through it.”

“Yeah,” was all Elijah could say to that.  Then, he got back to work while Miguel continued pacing.