Zendel

Cassius' shop was in its usual state of repair, but for once wasn't quite empty of customers. A gentlemen dwarf was assembling something that could, possibly, have been a weapon. It looked like an oversize pipe, covered in runes, with a pistol-grip handle, and six runestones along its side. The top was lined with a pair of flat metal plates, each decorated with dwarven text. The dwarf seemed pleased. Cassius looked like a proud parent.

At the sound of the door jingle, both of them glanced up at me, my presence shattering the mood. The dwarf nodded his thanks at Cassius, mumbled something quietly, and wrapped the item in some rough-knit gray cloth. The package safely tucked under his arm, he gave me half a nod as he stepped past me out through the door. Cassius continued to smile as he cleaned up the paperwork from the sale.

I took the moment to remove my hat and rub my arm across my forehead. It was blistering out there.

"What's on your mind, Greyson?" Cassius asked as I slowly made my way down the steps.

I rubbed my cheek, then tossed my hat on the counter. "I just came to say you were right."

"Great!" Cassius proclaimed, snapping shut the leather suitcase and tucking it out of sight somewhere behind the counter. "About what?"

"The assassin," I said. "Just an elf with a toy, nothing more."

"Yeah, I figured as much," He said without coming up. "No one can simply teleport. It's just not the way the world works."

"But here's the part where I get confused, Cash," I said. "In that Theo Jungle there are recorded, documented sightings of a flickering monkey. It's able to warp from location to location, exactly like our elf."

"Yep. The Flickering Monkey, Shade Deer, Kennans, and Yurin Sponge are all teleporters," He said, standing again. He was covered in dust.

"What were you doing down there?" I asked, worried about derailing the conversation, but at the same baffled to the point of curiousity.

He nodded towards the door, grinning. "The dwarf was a preferred customer. Lots of paperwork that needs to be kept hidden." He grabbed a rag and used it to rub clean his hands, either unaware of the dust on his face, or unconcerned. "But let's not get off track," He said, gesturing. "What's your question?"

"How come animals can teleport, but the sentient races can't?"

He grinned. "Have you heard of the Zendel?" I shook my head. "They were a race that lived on South Liena, back when that area was largely unclaimed wilderness. They actually fought with the Zanti, back in the day."

The Zanti were a dead race, reaching their prime before humans set foot on South Liena. Before the dwarves, even. I whistled. "That's surprising. I thought the Zanti basically had run of the continent."

"Of the habitable continent, yeah," Cash said. "But South Liena was and is still mostly a jungle. Too dangerous for large scale habitation. The Zendel live at the edge of the forest, and like your flickering monkey, they were teleporters.

"However, unlike them, and most of the races alive today, they were also sentient. It made fighting them difficult, and the Zanti never really did more than harass them. Of course, the opposite was also true. The Zendel were able to flicker in and out, but once they arrived at a place, they were just as easy to kill as the Zanti they surprised. For a long time, that stalemate persisted."

He took a long drink of water and I waited, then clearing his throat, Cassius continued. "Now, this changed dramatically one day."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Humans arrived," He said with an ominous grin. "The Dwarven nations had already set up shop to the north, preferring the slightly chiller climates. Humans came south, encountered the Zanti, and defeated them."

He was summing up five hundred years of prolonged conflict in a few quick sentences. I was impressed. He wasn't done, though.

"Now, after the battle of Fin Xixi, the whole of the Zanti land essentially laid in human hands. Colonists flowed out, set up shop, and began to grow crops. It was then that the Zendel attacked.

"At first these attacks were devastating. Human settlements burned by the dozen. As quick as a farmhouse or mill could be constructed, the Zendel would attack, and it would get burnt down. This went on for ten, twenty years maybe."

"And then?" I prompted, just to feed his ego. He smiled.

"And then the humans burned down the forest, and slaughtered them whole sale. The Zendel teleportation only worked over a set distance, so the humans created tactics that essentially forced the Zendel to leap into traps. And the Zendel eventually, were wiped out."

I waited. Cash took another sip of his water.

"And then?" I asked, when it became clear we were waiting for nothing.

"That's it. Teleporting sentients, and they were killed off. Every last one of them. Even the Zanti fared better."

"Okay. Why did you just tell me this?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" He said. "The  Zendel had one thing they did well. They teleported. Who knows what price this took, what cost it put onto their shoulders. Teleporting is tricky, and from an energy point of view, very very expensive. We can get away with it magically because we cheat. We tap into the earth, or the heavens, or even the ether to help power our devices. Heck, in a pinch, you can extract a good amount of mana from gasoline, if you burn it just right. The Zendel evolved to teleport, which meant they also had to evolve all the necessary supporting bits for it to happen, in the same way a bat had to evolve hollowed wings.

"Now, all this work to make them teleport means they relied on it. From a survival standpoint, being able to teleport was amazingly useful. However, humans, dwarves, elves, skithan... we defy evolutionary advantages. We're adaptable. We can use sticks, stones, guns, swords, magic, technology. We can do whatever we can, and we can find ways to let us teleport. We can also find ways to eliminate that as an advantage.

"In short, Mr. Greyson. There are no sentient races with magic powers because every time they show up, we, the collected jackasses of the world, find a way to kill them. We let the monkeys live because they don't threaten us." He was grinning in a way that made me want to hit him. "Isn't it beautiful?"

I shook my head, then placed my hat back on my head. "No, Cassius. That's terrible."

He shrugged, tossed his rag away. "That's the world we live in."