Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 7

“There was once a righteous ascetic by the name of Sattva, who lived in the days before magic was known to all and sundry. He was a man renowned for his wisdom and virtue, and was a welcome guest in many countries.”

When they crossed the plaza to its eastern side, they found Ilaan at the centre of the small crowd of men and women. The Human mystic – who referred to himself as a Soryo – had voluntarily accompanied them from Rivergarden to minister to the slaves. It was a good thing that he had agreed to come, as the first thing that the Humans decided to do upon entering the jungle was getting sick. Karuvaki and the other mystics with Saraca had dealt with the wave of illness that had swept through the convoy, but she wasn’t sure if Ocelo mystics would be any good at tending to Humans in the long run.

Xoc settled in with the others to listen. The name of the character in the tale was unfamiliar to Xoc, so it was a welcome change from the usual self-aggrandisement of the local clans.

“One day,” Ilaan continued, “on one of the many long journeys he took between the nations to share his wisdom. Sattva and his disciple came across a deep pit. In that pit, they noticed a Beastman mother with her two cubs. Sattva immediately saw that something was wrong. The mother and her children were all horribly emaciated, and it didn’t seem like there was a way out. Furthermore, the mother paced back and forth, eyeing her cubs with a strange gleam in her eyes.”

Xoc’s stomach sank as the monk described the situation. It wasn’t going to be a happy end. Similar tragedies were said to have been common immediately following the appearance of the Demon Gods. The jungles burned and the animals were driven away; many fell upon one another in hunger-driven madness.

“Seeing that the mother was likely to eat her children, Sattva instructed his disciple to head to the closest settlement and ask for help while he remained behind to try and convince the mother to not eat her children.

“After the disciple left, the man turned back to the pit. In truth, they were far from any village and no words could sway one gone mad from hunger. He watched the family trapped in the pit for a while before casting himself in. Sattva died from the fall and the mother was able to feed herself and her cubs.

“The disciple returned a week later with several villagers who all knew Sattva. When they couldn’t find him, they threw down ropes to help the Beastman family out of the pit and shared the provisions that they had prepared. The Beastman mother shared the tale of Sattva’s fate with them, which shocked everyone. In the end, however, they celebrated Sattva’s compassion before going their separate ways to spread the news of what had happened.”

“Wait a minute,” a man from the crowd said, “why would the Humans celebrate? He was a famous guy that just died to feed some stuck Beastmen.”

“That is the most common response to the legend,” the Soryo replied with a quiet smile. “This Jataka – a birth story related to one’s many reincarnations – is an instructional tale, illustrating how the dharma applies to the individuals involved.”

“What’s the dharma?”

“Simply put,” Ilaan said, “the dharma is the cosmic order that governs existence. When dharmic religions and philosophies refer to it, they speak of living in accordance with that cosmic order. As one acts or even thinks in accordance with the dharma or against it – dharma or adharma – their soul is marked with a tally called karma. Karma is what determines whether one is considered good or evil, and it also determines the realm and form of one’s rebirth.

“In this Jataka, we have two principal characters. The first is Sattva; the second, the mother. For the mother, eating her children is horrifically adharma. The state of her mind at the time does not influence the results of her actions on her karma. To both preserve the mother’s karma and save her innocent cubs, Sattva sacrificed himself. In terms of karma, it is a net positive outcome.”

The man’s face screwed up in confusion.

“And the Beastman eating the guy isn’t evil?”

“Not in that situation,” the Soryo replied. “Dharma is confusing to most in the west. In the Draconic Kingdom, morality is dictated by the arbitrary mandates of the various faiths that dominate western culture.”

“But we’re talking good and evil,” the man said. “How can good and evil be subjective?”

“Dharma is not subjective – it is non-dharmic value systems that are inherently subjective. Dharma, on the other hand, is perfectly objective, and understanding the dharma means that one understands the result of any potential karmic ‘transaction’. Religions like the Faith of the Six, and, by extension, the Faith of the Four, only apply to Human cultures…and often not even then. Dharma, however, applies to all things according to the cosmic order.”

“How do you know that? Who says that good and evil go according to this dharma–”

“Karma,” Saraca corrected him. “If it makes it easier, think of it as a balance or score. The more one acts in accordance with the dharma, the higher one’s karma score. The more positive one’s karma score, the more good one is on the scales of the cosmic order. If one lives an adharma life – a life that goes against the dharma – one’s karma score goes lower and one becomes eviler as a result. Everyone’s life tends to be filled with actions that range across the scale, so no one is perfectly good or perfectly evil.

“As for how we know, many religions have a type of holy warrior called a Paladin. Are you familiar with them?”

The Merchant nodded, and Saraca continued his explanation.

“They have anti-evil attacks that they often employ according to the prejudices fostered by their artificial morality. Those anti-evil attacks often fail as a result, and it confuses them to no end. This is especially true in religions that promote specific races over others or have a one-sided view of the world. They see enemies and assume that they are evil, and then they find that their specialised attacks are impotent. Even more absurd are the ‘crusades’ that happen between two religions where Paladins on both sides run around trying to smite one another.”

“…and they don’t notice?” The man frowned.

“I’m sure that they do, but people believe what they want to believe. Zealots, in particular, will come up with any number of rationalisations to defend their beliefs.”

“But this ‘Buddhism’ is a religion, no? It’s bound to have zealots as well.”

“Buddhism is not a religion,” Ilaan said. “Religions produce divine casters. Buddhist monks and other related vocations, however, produce spiritual-category casters as their ‘priests’. Buddhism is a philosophy that follows the Path of Enlightenment. Enlightenment in this case refers to a perfect understanding of the dharma and how it applies to all things. By obtaining perfect enlightenment, one may achieve nirvana and transcend the otherwise-endless cycle of rebirth and suffering.”

The Humans in the crowd remained unconvinced. Xoc wasn’t sure what to think of it herself. She didn’t know much about magic, but the idea that one could become a caster by following a philosophy was unheard of in Rol’en’gorek. If natural spirits and the gods granted power to those who worshipped them, then where did Ilaan get his power from?

“I dunno,” the Merchant said. “How I hear it, you’re saying that it’s fine for Beastmen to raid us.”

“It would be simpler to think of things in terms of relationships,” the Soryo replied. “One relationship is that of predator and prey. It is in accordance with the dharma for predators to hunt prey, but prey fleeing or defending themselves is also in accordance with the dharma. Humans killing Beastmen in self-defence or Beastmen eating Humans out of predatory practices are both karma-positive actions within the context of a predator-prey relationship.”

“Doesn’t that mean everyone involved ends up being good?”

“Well, I can’t speak for what they do outside of raiding or defending their communities, but this form of raiding is not evil. ‘Raiding’ is simply a label employed by Humans to attach negative connotations to a certain set of behaviours that they deem undesirable. In other situations, raiding is considered a positive customary practice or an efficient military tactic.”

“So if some Beastman in this city comes and turns me into a snack, that’s fine?”

“Once again,” Ilaan said, “consider it in terms of relationships between individuals. In Lady Xoc’s clanhold, for instance, you are members of the same community. That means the warriors here are no different in their relationship to you as the soldiers you depended on for security in the Draconic Kingdom. Lady Xoc herself would be something like a Noble, and her responsibilities would be similar to those you’re familiar with. When one considers the world through dharmic principles, everyone and everything has place and behaviours expected of what they are.”

“Meaning that providing security for the Humans here is especially important,” Saraca plopped a paw on Xoc’s head. “Since they’re not recognised by the vast majority of the city yet, the risk of accidents is high. As a Lord, you have your own dharma to follow: rajadharma, or the way of kings.”

They left the Soryo to his teachings, making their way back around the plaza.

“How come you haven’t been teaching me that rajadharma thing?” Xoc asked.

“I have been,” Saraca replied. “Rajadharma requires an understanding of dharma in general, as rulers guide society as a whole. It is not simply statecraft – it is enlightened statecraft with the goal of creating a thriving, enlightened society.”

“Like the Beastman Confederacy?”

The Nar Lord let out a rueful chuckle.

“Well, just saying that it is doesn’t make it so. An enlightened society is populated by enlightened individuals, and new individuals always enter society. Furthermore, few achieve true enlightenment and one’s understanding and will to follow the dharma is always tested, so society as a whole is never fully enlightened. A Lord’s role is to ensure that the land and its people can live according to the dharma in whatever state their subjects and territories find themselves in.”

It seemed vague, but Xoc thought she understood what he was talking about. An enlightened society was a harmonious society, but harmonious according to the dharma rather than any laws fashioned by people. No matter the species or culture, dharma was the same. Thus, it could be employed as a universal measure. It was not a set of arbitrary, black-and-white rules that one had to adhere to – what was right was dependent on the situation and the individual. No matter where one was, as long as they understood how everything fit together, they would know the right thing to do.

The Humans, however, still had trouble understanding, or at least accepting, what the Soryo shared with them. It was strange considering that Ilaan was a Human himself and should have had an easier time relating to them.

“You didn’t seem surprised that Ilaan isn’t getting through to the others,” Xoc said.

“I’ve seen it before,” Saraca replied. “Many times. When my assignments send me to areas of the world where Humans are known to be present in advance, Buddhist missionaries usually volunteer to come with us.”

“And it’s hilarious,” Girika said. “Those monks go in all well-intentioned and get accused of spreading a ‘cult’ that encourages Humans to be docile and accept being eaten.”

“Well, those people miss the point entirely,” Saraca said. “Members of especially superficial and insular cultures only see the threat that foreign thinking represents to them. And it’s not just Humans who react that way. Ilaan’s experience is just limited. As with the people of the Draconic Kingdom, many elsewhere have an arbitrary sense of morality thoroughly ingrained in them through culture and religion. Furthermore, their value systems tend to be narrow in focus. Also, every species has its quirks, and some have a nature that is more problematic than others."

“Like that one crazy insectoid hive,” Girika said.

“I wouldn’t call them crazy,” Saraca replied. “Each member of their race is specialised for a certain role, so they readily embrace the principles of enlightened culture internally. They just have a problem applying it to outsiders because literally everything is an exploitable resource or a threat to them. Then you have their scent-based communication that doubles as a sort of drug to spur various behaviours. If a scout lays down a trail of scent markers for food, then those who respond are essentially set to gather food, whatever that food is.”

“Yeah, and if one uses a threat marker, they all go berserk and no amount of talking will stop them from trying to rip you apart.”

It almost sounded like they were talking about Giant Ants. Maybe it was some sort of ant Demihuman.

“Doesn’t that mean that once something bad happens it stays like that forever?” Xoc asked.

“It’s hard to fix, yeah,” Girika said. “Once the hive decides you’re a threat – or food – every time a scout finds you, you can expect a whole bunch of her drugged-up sisters to follow up.”

“It’s a good thing there isn’t anything like that in Rol’en’gorek,” Xoc said.

“Maybe there was,” Girika replied, “and they were obliterated a long time ago. A lot of insectoid hives meet that fate because they’re like that.”

Their stroll brought them to another group of people, this time consisting of both Beastmen and Humans. The Humans were sitting under a large pavilion where they watched the Beastmen examine their work.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, hello Xoc,” one of the Beastmen replied. “We were just looking at how your Humans weave cloth.”

The cloth in question was one of the many blankets woven out of Nug wool on the way upriver. Xoc then realised that most of the Beastmen present were tailors.

“Is there anything wrong with it?” Xoc asked.

“We can make out how it’s made, but it’s their tools that make me envious. They can spin an incredible amount of yarn very quickly with that wheel thing.”

Supposedly, the Humans had even more complex tools that they couldn’t bring along with them. Fortunately, they could be manufactured once the appropriate facilities were raised. Xoc had no idea how any of the contraptions the Humans used worked. She also had no idea how the Beastman tailors understood what was going on.

“Is it something you want to try out?”

It was only after the words left her mouth that Xoc realised that there might be a problem. The Ocelo tailors present were already working professionals. Could they become ‘apprentices’ again? Maybe there was a different arrangement for that sort of thing.

“You wouldn’t mind?” One of the Ocelo Tailors said, “Quite frankly, I’m afraid I’d break the thing.”

Xoc looked over at the Human tailors.

“Will it break?” She asked.

“Not unless someone goes out of their way to break it, Lady Xoc,” a woman replied. “The spinning wheel’s made out of wood and iron. If you can handle yarn, you’re not going to randomly destroy it.”

“Then, if I may…”

The Ocelo tailor ducked to fit under the pavilion. One of the Humans got up and stepped away from her spinning wheel.

“Is there anything special that I need to do?” The Ocelo tailor asked.

“It’s not much different from doing it by hand,” the Human replied. “The wheel does the twisting and puts the yarn on the spindle. You drive the wheel by pushing this pedal here.”

“Aside from that, all I have to do is tease out the fibres as usual?”

“That’s right.”

The spinning wheel started moving as the Ocelo Tailor did as he was instructed.

“Let’s see…oh, this is easy. The yarn is so fine, too. I would love to have one of these. Will this, um, Human village be producing these spinning wheels? I guess they’d be expensive…”

“We haven’t worked all that stuff out yet,” Xoc replied. “Out of curiosity, would you like to work directly for me?”

“Directly for you? How does that differ from just selling my goods in the market?”

That’s a good question, which I don’t have the answer to…

Xoc sent what she hoped was an inconspicuous, pleading look at Devi. The Nar Merchant rolled her eyes in amusement.

“At some point,” Devi said, “Xoc’s Merchants will be managing market orders. I haven’t seen them used in Rol’en’gorek, but you can think of it as them issuing requests for goods of a certain quality that you can fill. For instance, the Merchant Guild may determine that the seasonal needs of their members include roughly ten thousand burlap sacks capable of carrying fifty kilograms each.”

“So I can make jute sacks that meet those requirements and sell them to the Merchant Guild?”

“That’s right,” Devi replied with a nod.

“What are the advantages and disadvantages of selling to this ‘Merchant Guild’?”

“It’s a guaranteed sale, for one. An artisan won’t have to sit in the local market for an hour or more waiting for people to purchase their goods. Instead, they accept an order from a Merchant and complete the order to receive payment.”

“A Merchant? Not the Merchant Guild?”

“A guild is a regulatory and administrative institution,” Devi said. “It’s the members that are the actual professionals. The role of a Guild is to ensure that its members conduct business according to certain standards. A Merchant Guild provides various services for Merchants, such as banking, tracking market data, acting as a middleman for transactions, and organising commercial activities. As artisans, it is in your best interests to take advantage of what guilds offer by becoming members.”

“We’ll have to look into that. Could you describe how dealing with this Merchant works?”

“That depends on how Xoc wants to set things up,” Devi replied. “Where do artisans here usually work?”

“At home,” the Tailor said, “or somewhere nearby. The entire family works. My wife and I do the spinning and weaving while the kids forage for jute and help process the fibres.”

“Forage?” Saraca furrowed his brow, “You don’t trade for the jute?”

“There’s no need. We can find jute plants along the lake and the river. We just have to get them before the Nug ranchers come around with their herds. Oh – if we’re working with Nug wool, we must trade for it, of course.”

Saraca and Devi fell silent for a moment. Was there something wrong with what the Tailor said?

“In that case,” Devi told them, “there are several options to go about doing this. The first is to continue using your homes as workshops. A Merchant would travel from home to home with their cart, providing the raw materials to fill each order and receiving the completed products. Your family would be able to focus their time on the production of tailored goods, or even have some free time if things are profitable enough.”

“That does sound nice…but how much would we be paid if we don’t provide the materials ourselves?”

“Wages are yet to be determined, but you’ll be able to live off of it. How many jute bags can you make in a day if you’re provided with the yarn?”

“Of the specifications from before? Around twenty. My wife can do about the same, as well.”

“And how much would you normally receive for that many?” Devi asked.

“It depends,” the Tailor answered. “On average, we’d probably get six portions of meat for ten sacks. But we’d only make ten sacks in a day because most of our time would be taken up by gathering raw materials and processing them.”

“I see,” Devi said. “In that case, the Merchant would probably be paying you around five copper coins for twenty sacks.”

The Beastman tailors exchanged silent looks.

“As a daily wage,” one of them said, “that’s far better than what we usually make. You mentioned that there were several options – what were the others?”

“They’re further down the road,” Devi replied, “but they involve centralising production by creating large workshops – manufactories, or factories, for short. They’d be filled with the tools and machines you see here and you would become employees of the factory. Wages would go up since you’d be producing more goods overall and the industry as a whole becomes more efficient. You also get more opportunities to socialise with others, if you’re someone who appreciates that.”

“Well, that sounds even better…but if we work in this ‘factory’, we’d risk losing our homes or at least getting robbed.”

“Xoc will figure something out,” Saraca said. “If you’ll excuse us, we need to move on to our next bit of business.”

“Of course. We look forward to what you spoke of.”

Saraca led Xoc away, heading toward the upper terrace. When they left the plaza, his steps slowed.

“Is something wrong?” Xoc asked, “You reacted strangely to some of the things that they said, too.”

“It’s nothing new,” Saraca answered, “just a bit of reality here that took about this long to sink in.”

“I think it’s an amazing opportunity,” Devi said.

“What is?” Xoc glanced between the two.

“In short,” Saraca said, “it’s chaos. Ghrkhor’storof’hekheralhr exists in a state of near-anarchy. Everything is common land. Property rights don’t exist. One’s home is only one’s home for as long as one can hold onto it. The law only serves those who can afford to pay for law enforcement. It was right in front of our faces the entire time, but our preconceptions blinded us.”

He made it sound like some atrocious thing, but it sounded normal to her.

“What made you realise it?” She asked.

“When the Tailor mentioned how they got their raw materials,” Saraca answered. “They forage. Furthermore, they forage the same vegetation that the Nug herds feed on. Everything is just there for everyone to use, but no one keeps track of what people do. It’s a recipe for inequity, where one is free to exploit common resources with no accountability.”

“It’s also horrifyingly inefficient,” Devi added. “Which makes everything in this city an incredible opportunity. But it also made us realise a rather stupid oversight on our part.”

“What’s that?”

“We didn’t bring any Farmers back with us,” Devi said. “We’re going to have to do that part the hard way.”

“I don’t follow…”

They reached the bottom of the stairs to the upper terrace, making their way up at a leisurely pace. Droplets of rain started to flit about in the afternoon wind.

“Because everything is common land,” Saraca said, “no one takes care of it. Whatever’s there is just there, and people take what they please. The plants that the Tailor’s children harvest are just wild growth, but those plants can be grown as crops.”

“The problem with growing crops as things are, however,” Devi said, “is that you’d be growing them on common land. People would think nothing of harvesting it or bringing their animals to feed on it. Therefore, you need to turn that common land back into private land.”

“How do I do that?”

“The same way any clan does it,” Saraca said. “Make it a de facto part of your territory. Bring it under your management and enforce the laws of your clan and Rol’en’gorek within it. Until people recognise it as part of your land, they’ll continue trying to treat it as common land.”

“But people depend on that land…”

“Only because they have no better way to access resources,” Devi said. “Foraging for jute growing wild along the waterfront is incomparable to cultivating a jute crop. In the same land that might support one family of Tailors, you’d be able to support thirty.”

Thirty? That sounded impossible. Then again, there were an absurd number of Humans in the Draconic Kingdom for what little land they had…

“On top of that,” Saraca said, “there’s a conflict in specialisation. Foraging is something that Rangers, Druids and various botanical vocations do. For agricultural crops, you want Farmers. Farmers are all around better at tending to the fields, achieving higher yields and product quality. Right now, your people don’t have the freedom to cultivate their skills in a chosen profession. They need to invest time and energy into doing the things that other professions are supposed to be doing.”

“Which is also grossly inefficient,” Devi said, “especially for Demihumans. Rol’en’gorek has reached the capacity of what its technological advancement can support, but its culture and economy still have space to develop. Addressing those aspects will allow your people to more efficiently utilise that capacity. As you rebuild your clan and reorganise its territory, you’ll begin to see that many things will get cheaper and more accessible for everyone.”

“Is that why you said they would be paid more for working in a factory?” Xoc asked.

“That’s exactly right,” Devi nodded. “Currently, the cost of goods is bound to three main things. One is the daily wage one needs to survive. The second is the cost of raw materials.”

“But they get raw materials for free.”

“They still require work to acquire. Additionally, the way things are done right now, one person denies another’s livelihood by taking from common land. Jute, for instance, takes four months to grow. Here, you also have the risk of some Nug rancher grazing it down to nothing in the meantime, or one harvesting it prematurely to prevent another from taking it. Retting jute stalks takes three weeks, and then the result takes additional time to process. One needs to eat during that time. By expanding operations, the cost of raw materials goes down because it’s no longer one person working with what little they can find, but one person working with as much as they reasonably can.”

“So they have the same, uh…cost of living, but the land produces more and so do they.”

“Exactly. Also, the more skilled one becomes in their craft, the better the outcomes. When you apply these basic principles to an industry, the economics surrounding that industry transforms. When you apply it to everything, the lives of you and your people will change.”

In the central courtyard of Xoc’s home, they found an odd sight waiting for them. Several odd sights. The first was that a giant rock thing had appeared out of nowhere and the hunters in Saraca’s entourage were throwing rocks at it. The giant rock thing, however, didn’t seem to care. Vltava – the fluffy, three-eyed creature that had come with Winter Moon – was sitting atop one of the broken mounds, surrounded by mystics from Saraca’s entourage and her clanhold.

Winter Moon was standing by the old fountain in the middle of the courtyard with Mitra. Both of them were waving their arms around weirdly. Xoc didn’t know what to make of them.

“What are you two up to?” Saraca asked as they approached the fountain.

“Stuff,” Mitra replied.

“…what kind of stuff?”

Mitra stopped moving her arms, giving Saraca a sour look.

“It’s nothing a plebeian like you would understand,” she said. “Let’s go get some lunch, Winter Moon.”

“Sure,” Winter Moon replied. “Have a good afternoon, Mister Plebeian.”

“Plebeian…”

Saraca watched the two with a disgruntled expression until they disappeared down the stairs to the second terrace.

“Nice,” Girika said. “The harem candidate ran off with your main wife.”

“Oh, shut up,” Saraca said.

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