Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 19 - Chapter 10

0118A660. To the Future

The black ones will come and swallow the world.

Lie in wait in the deepest depths until the black ones depart.

A new dawn awaits us after the calamity brought by the black ones.

This was the prophecy of a terrible future foreseen by the first ugoth sage, Togorogo, the finest specimen of the goblin race, a seer said to be unsurpassed to this day.

The duty of the mogado, the king of the goblins, was not simply to protect his race, allow them to prosper, and pass his authority on to the next generation. They also had to prepare for the calamity Togorogo had seen in his visions.

Togorogo had served the current mogado’s tenth predecessor. That mogado had heeded his warning and started to excavate Ohdongo, the Deepest Valley. It was to be the place they would evacuate to when the calamity arrived. In time, Togorogo had died. The mogado’s fifth predecessor had finally finished digging out Ohdongo, housing the ugoths there with all the treasures of their race in preparation for that day.

We must avoid a situation where all that remains of our race after the calamity passes is what little we can manage to hide in the Deepest Valley. That had been the thought of the mogado’s fifth predecessor. Not all of us will make it through the calamity. Decisions will need to be made as to who should survive.

Mogado Gwagajin was in the deepest part of Ohdongo, unable to sleep a wink. The treasures of his people were on display here, with the seats of the ugoths set around his own throne and a colored drawing depicting the prophecy of Togorogo carved into the wall.

The mogado’s fifth predecessor, who had expanded the vertical shaft of Ohdongo to add a horizontal shaft with eight rooms called this room, the deepest of them all, the Room of Prophecy. There was no way to reach it without going through the iron doors at the base of the vertical shaft and passing through all the other rooms.

On one occasion, the mogado who came before Gwagajin went mad, believing the calamity was upon them, and shut himself in the Room of Prophecy. When he emerged some time later on his own, he started raving that the Room of Prophecy was cursed. It wasn’t. While the door was shut, the Room of Prophecy was completely sealed, so the king had simply been struggling to breathe.

“There is poison in the air we goblins exhale, and staying in a place dense with that poison will make you drown as if you were underwater.”

That fool of a king hadn’t believed his ugoths when they’d presented him with this fact, but Gwagajin was different. When he ascended the throne, he immediately took their counsel and installed side passages between the eight rooms, as well as air tanks. They had learned that fire produced the poison too, so they started a crossbreeding program to produce the flying worms that gave off light, which had become their main source of illumination.

There were now countless lightworms flying around the Room of Prophecy, sharing their glow with Gwagajin, the ugoths, his five wives who were cowering in the corner, and the sixteen young princes.

Gwagajin had never thought that the day these preparations would be needed would come during his reign. He couldn’t ignore the prophecy, but it had set no date for when the black ones would come. It might have been during his time. It might have been during the next king’s, or five kings down the line. Perhaps even ten.

If that’s the case, then rather than prepare for the day of prophecy, wouldn’t it be better to boldly expand into the outside world?

If they were to expand beyond Damuro, there were problems that had to be tackled first. Nothing but problems, it might be fairly said.

For one thing, as a general rule, we’re too short-lived.

Even those of royal stock, like Gwagajin, were doing well if they lived more than thirty hundredfold-days. Most goblins would be too weak to stand by the time they reached ten hundredfold-days. The ugoths were so long-lived that some made it past forty hundredfold-days, but only because these highly clever goblins were singled out, kept from exercising, fed well, and carefully protected. The larger variety of goblin, the hobs—which were born on rare occasions—could live as long as those of royal stock, but they learned slowly and were incredibly stupid.

It’s clear that we need to become wiser, but if most of us can only expect to live ten hundredfold-days, they can’t learn much, and what they do learn will be lost when they die.

Gwagajin recognized that they were inferior to humans and orcs. When he’d become mogado, he had come to the conclusion that the biggest reason for that was the shortness of their lives.

Gwagajin sat silently on his throne in the Room of Prophecy. The ugoths surrounding him kept their mouths shut as well. His wives and the princes whispered to one another occasionally but mostly kept quiet. This was because it was important that they breathe out as little poison as possible while they waited in the Room of Prophecy for the calamity to pass them by.

When they’d received reports that the black ones had entered Damuro, Gwagajin had hesitated to evacuate to Ohdongo. Should he, the mogado, be fleeing into the Room of Prophecy while his people were panicking because the calamity they had long feared was now coming to pass? Against the warnings of his ugoths, Gwagajin had tried to halt the invasion of the black ones.

It had all been in vain. He had to admit that now.

There was no way to tell the time anymore, but Gwagajin had held out in Ahsvasin, the Highest Heaven, for six days and nights. However, when the black ones were finally about to reach Ohdongo, he was forced to make a decision.

Gwagajin had raced down the stairs that ran along the walls of the Deepest Valley with his retinue. Before they could even reach the bottom, the black ones were already starting to flow down the walls. He’d never forget the sight of the black ones raining down on them. He’d screamed, without shame or concern for appearances.

He’d sent his wives and the princes to Ohdongo days before, and the most important of the ugoths were assembled in the Room of Prophecy.

Gwagajin remembered the moment when the doors to the Room of Prophecy had been shut tight. He was sitting on his throne, surrounded by ugoths and treasure, painfully aware that, even with all his wives and princes around him, he was a king no more.

Gwagajin had regretted it ever since.

Perhaps he never should have moved from Ahsvasin. If only death awaited, then the Highest Heaven was where a king should meet it.

Ever since he had become mogado—no, even before then—the ugoths had been the only ones he could have a decent conversation with. When Gwagajin spoke to them of his belief that they too must become a long-lived race, they offered tepid rebuttals. Some even warned him that the privileged class would never stand for it and that he might face rebellion from his fellow royals.

But what had the royals ever done? Lived longer than the rest and spent that time pursuing their own pleasure? Those of royal stock bred with one another, while looking down on the shorter-lived members of their race as beneath them, immersing themselves in power struggles, gourmet food, and sexual indulgence. They made the short-lived kill one another, not seeing the cannibalism they engaged in as wrong. Were they not the worst of their own kind?

And Gwagajin came from that same royal stock.

“It’s the cannibalism,” Gwagajin murmured to himself.

The ugoths all hung their heads. A number of them had their eyes turned up to still look at the mogado.

The doors to the Room of Prophecy were creaking under some great pressure from the outside. They had been for some time now. First the ugoths, and then his wives and princes, had made a fuss about it, but now no one paid it any mind. Perhaps they had grown used to the terror.

“Royals and ugoths do not eat their own. Right? It’s the short-lived who eat one another. Royals are the descendants of those who stopped engaging in cannibalism a long time ago. My ugoths, I had you look into the causes of death for our people. For the short-lived ones, first they start to fear the night. Then their limbs wither, and they begin to speak nonsense. Their speech grows slurred, they walk with difficulty, they become bedridden, and then they stop breathing. This is the typical death for one of the short-lived. Yes? But it’s rare for a royal or an ugoth to die like this, isn’t it? To the best of my knowledge, there has only been one. My uncle, the previous mogado, Bodojin. Bodojin engaged in eccentric behavior, cursing at everyone around him, clinging to the throne, and soiling himself as he foamed at the mouth. My ugoths, you must know. Bodojin had the awful habit of killing the short-lived and eating them. He was secretly engaging in cannibalism. Shouldn’t we have stopped that practice as the first thing we did?”

Gwagajin wore a suit of armor from the treasury, with the crown on his head and the royal scepter in his hand. Not to mention every other shiny accessory that he could manage. But he wished he could throw them all away. These were not what Gwagajin had wanted.

“We should have banned cannibalism. We could have found a solution to the food crisis it would have resulted in. I knew we should have gone out into the world. We were too timid. Yes, the prophecy was right. Togorogo was a genuine seer. But we’ve had no seers since. In Togorogo’s time, even the ugoths engaged in cannibalism. If they hadn’t, Togorogo might have lived even longer. He could have seen more of the future, and shown us the way. If the short-lived can live as long as the royals when they don’t eat each other, then we could have produced many intelligent and powerful individuals from their ranks. We would have been stronger and wiser for it, I’m sure. Without cannibalism, our women wouldn’t need to fear that the children they have birthed and raised might be eaten. They wouldn’t need to produce and throw away so many disposable young. We might have learned to value each and every one of our kind. It’s not enough for me, royal Gwagajin, to think these things on my own. Our lives are too short to fully cultivate these ideas and pass them on. We needed to stop the cannibalism. Why didn’t I see this sooner? Tell me, my ugoths. Was I, royal Gwagajin, a fool? Too foolish to realize?”

The assembled ugoths hung their heads and wept. His wives and the older princes cried. The younger princes were despondent.

The lightworms, which had likely lived for dozens of hundredfold-days, flew rapidly around the Room of Prophecy.

Now it wasn’t just the doors. The tiled floor of the room, the wall that bore Togorogo’s vision of the calamity, the sturdy pillars and beams that held up the ceiling—no, the entire Room of Prophecy was shaking.

“Is there no tomorrow for us?”

Gwagajin could not hold back a sob.

“Where did we go wrong? What are the black ones? What is about to destroy us? My ugoths, I beg you, tell me. Was I, royal Gwagajin, a fool? If this is my fault alone, then let Gwagajin alone perish. What need is there to destroy us all? Don’t wipe us out. O black ones, O calamity, please, do not kill us all. We’ll stop the cannibalism. Our people can become wiser, stronger! Once, the No-Life King took us by the hand, held us close to his chest, and told us to rise with him—told us we could. Yes. We can stand for ourselves. We’re no barbarians. At the very least, we’re not willing to endure others calling us savages and looking down on us. We can move forward. If we have a future, we can walk. O calamity, don’t destroy us. Give us a chance, please...”

The door which had been shut tight and barred several times was opening.

Gwagajin rose from the throne. The armor, necklace, earrings, bracelets, and other treasures which had been stored in the Room of Prophecy—and which Gwagajin now wore—supposedly harbored special powers inside of them. Some had been found at various places in Alterna. Others were treasures they’d received from trade with the humans in the past. Many had been brought by adventurers from parts unknown. Wasn’t this the time to put their hidden powers to use?

“We cannot die out!”

Oh, the door was opening.

The black ones would rush into the Room of Prophecy.

Gwagajin raised his scepter.

“O treasures, give me your power!”