The Elder Gods (41 page)
If Yaltar was aware of Eleria’s true identity, and Eleria was aware of Yaltar’s, could it be possible that they knew other things as well? Zelana searched back through her memories to see if she could find any evidence whatsoever that the children had, no matter how briefly, used their dormant abilities to alter reality in any small way. Their dreams were one thing, but if they’d been using their gifts consciously, the fabric of reality could very well be in danger.
There seemed to be nothing overt. The only peculiarity Eleria had shown was her overwhelming need for the affection of the mortals. Her “kiss-kiss” game with Longbow, Rabbit, and finally even the stuffy young Trogite Keselo had seemed on the surface to be no more than some childish game, but what if it went much further? For obvious reasons, Zelana had never actually witnessed Balacenia’s methods to control the man-things of the Western Domain. Could it possibly be that she’d just kissed them all into submission? It had certainly worked with the pink dolphins when Eleria had been no more than a baby. Zelana almost laughed. What a clever way to rule that would be, and, by extension, it might just explain why Yaltar had gone to such extremes to protect Balacenia’s Domain. A few of those “kiss-kiss” encounters would have rendered poor Vash helpless. Then, with Vash wrapped around her finger, Balacenia could have turned to . . .
What
were
their names? It was maddening! Why
couldn’t
Zelana remember their names?
I
t was early summer now in the Domain of Zelana of the West, but this summer was unlike any other Red-Beard had ever seen. Summer is usually a time of beauty, but this one was haunted by the twin fire mountains at the head of the ravine. Each sunrise seemed to be smeared with blood as the fire mountains continued to belch forth smoke and ash, and a perpetual gloom hung over the village of Lattash.
A few of the women of the tribe had gone through the motions of planting the customary gardens, but what was the use of that? The village was almost certainly doomed, and in all probability it wouldn’t even be here by next autumn at harvest-time.
Lattash still looked much the same as it had for years. The bay was still blue, the sandy beach was still white, and the forest to the east was still dark green as it mounted up the foothills toward the snow-covered peaks. The tides continued to rise and fall as they had since the beginning of time. The only noticeable difference lay in the river that had always come joyously down the ravine to join the waters of the bay. It was no longer a river, though. It was hardly even a brook. The cursed fire mountains had obviously sealed off the source of the river, and it was now no more than a scant trickle that would almost certainly dry up by midsummer.
That, of course, would mark the end of Lattash. Without fresh water, the gardens of the women of the tribe would die out, and there would be no food to eat next winter. The mood in the village was somber, and a cloud of melancholy seemed to hang over Lattash.
Red-Beard sighed. There was no getting around the fact that it was time to seek out another home for the people of White-Braid’s tribe. That was where the problem lay. Red-Beard’s uncle, Chief White-Braid, was so overwhelmed with sorrow by the inevitable loss of the village that had been the home of the tribe for many centuries that he couldn’t function anymore. The tribe had to find a suitable new location, build new lodges, and grow food before winter came again, but Chief White-Braid refused to even talk about it. No matter how much Red-Beard cudgeled his brain, he couldn’t for the life of him come up with a way to bring his uncle back to his senses.
Muttering curses under his breath, Red-Beard went looking for Longbow.
“I don’t see that you’ve got much choice, Red-Beard,” his friend said gravely as the two of them stood on the protective berm looking down at the tiny trickle of muddy water that was all there was left of the river. “The fire mountains killed the servants of the Vlagh, certainly, but it looks to me like they’ve
also
killed the village of Lattash. Without water, your tribe will either have to find a new place to live or stay here and die.”
“I know that, Longbow,” Red-Beard replied. “I can see it as well as you can, but how am I going to be able to pound the idea down Uncle White-Braid’s throat? Every time I even so much as hint at the notion, his eyes go blank and he starts talking about something else. He refuses to even
think
about relocating the tribe. Lattash is so much a part of him that he won’t even consider moving.”
“You’ll probably have to step around him and take charge of the tribe yourself, then.”
“I can’t do that!” Red-Beard exclaimed. “He’s the chief. If I start showing that kind of disrespect, the whole tribe will turn their backs on me. They won’t follow any orders I might give them.”
“They will if your uncle tells them to.” Longbow looked at the clustered lodges of the village and the fishnets hanging from poles along the beach. “I’m sure this was a good place to live in the past, my friend, but the past is over, and
now
came along just as soon as the river started to dry up.
Then
went away, and your tribe’s living in the world of
now.
If they don’t move very soon, they’ll die for lack of food and water. If you put it to them in those terms, I’m sure they’ll listen to you. If your chief isn’t willing to give the necessary commands because of his sorrow, he’ll have to step aside and hand the authority off to someone else—you, most likely.” Longbow smiled faintly. “‘Chief Red-Beard’ has a rather pleasant sound to it, don’t you think?”
“Not to me, it doesn’t,” Red-Beard objected. “Do you have any idea of how stuffy and tedious the life of a chief must be? I don’t think I could stand that.”
“Be brave, Chief Red-Beard,” Longbow said with mock sententiousness. “If something is for the good of your tribe, you can’t just turn your back on it, can you?”
“You had to go and say that, didn’t you?” Red-Beard grumbled sourly.
Longbow shrugged. “It’s time for you to face reality, my friend. Sooner or later you
will
have to assume the authority in your tribe if your uncle can no longer function. This might give you some practice in the fine art of being stuffy. Right now, though, we’ve got a more pressing problem to deal with.”
“The sky is falling, maybe?”
“Well, not today, probably, but we’ve got a goodly number of unhappy people in those ships out in the bay. In her infinite wisdom, Zelana of the West saw fit to leave the village without bothering to pay Sorgan Hook-Beak and the other Maags for their services during the recent unpleasantness.”
“The gold’s stacked up in that cave of hers just outside the village,” Red-Beard reminded his friend. “Why don’t they just walk into the cave and pay themselves?”
“They’ve already tried that, but they can’t get into the tunnel where the gold’s piled up.”
“What did Zelana do?—make the ceiling fall down or something?”
“No, it’s completely intact, but there’s a solid wall blocking off the tunnel that’s filled with all those pretty yellow blocks. It’s a very unusual sort of wall. The Maags can see through it, but it’s harder than any stone. That means that they can look at the gold as much as they want, but they can’t reach it. Ox took his axe into the cave and chopped at the wall for the better part of a day, but he didn’t so much as knock a chip out of it. He did manage to destroy his axe, though. Now Sorgan’s absolutely positive that our Zelana’s trying to cheat him.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“You and I know that, but Hook-Beak doesn’t know her as well as we do. Lying, cheating, and stealing are part of the Maag culture, so honesty’s an alien concept for them. If Zelana doesn’t come back here fairly soon, we might just have another war on our hands before long.”
“Now I’ve got something
else
to worry about.” Then Red-Beard remembered something. “Rabbit told me that you and Zelana can speak with each other without making a sound. He said you two did that back in the Land of Maag when trouble broke out in the harbor at Kweta. Could you possibly reach out to her from here?”
“I’ve already tried it a few times. Either she’s too far away, or she refuses to listen to me.”
“Do you think that maybe Eleria could hear you? If anybody could bring Zelana to her senses, it’d be Eleria. If nothing else, the little girl could probably kiss Zelana into submission. She had you and Rabbit and that young Trogite, Keselo, wrapped around her little finger in no time at all.”
“Tell me about it,” Longbow said. Then he squinted at his friend. “She never tried that on you, did she?”
Red-Beard shrugged. “I probably don’t have anything she wants,” he replied.
“Why don’t we go out to the
Seagull
and have a talk with Sorgan?” Longbow suggested. “If he realizes that we’re trying to get word to Zelana that it’s time to come back and give him the gold she promised him, maybe he won’t come ashore and burn the village of Lattash right down to the ground.”
“Let’s not rush into anything here, Longbow,” Red-Beard said in mock seriousness. “If the Maags come ashore and burn Lattash to the ground, it might just persuade my uncle that it’s time to pack up and move on. Then I won’t have to do anything except obey his orders—or sneak off to someplace where he can’t find me. He’ll go back to being the chief, and I won’t have to grow up.”
“Don’t hold your breath, Red-Beard. Let’s go see Sorgan Hook-Beak.”
The sun seemed very bright as Red-Beard deftly drove his canoe toward the
Seagull
with long, smooth strokes of his paddle. It was early summer now, and Red-Beard was sure that the fishing would be very good. He pushed that thought aside. Despite the bright sun and sparkling water, there wouldn’t be any fishing today. He was almost positive that he and Longbow would have to waste a perfect day listening to Hook-Beak’s complaints.
“Your canoe moves smoothly,” Longbow noted.
“I got lucky when I put this one together,” Red-Beard replied modestly. “I finally managed to get the right curve on the ribs. The one I built before was sort of skittish. Every time I sneezed, she’d roll over and dump me into the bay.”
“I’ve had the same thing happen to me a few times,” Longbow admitted. “Sometimes I think canoes have a warped sense of humor.”
Red-Beard tried to avoid looking at the towering cloud of smoke and ash spouting up out of the twin volcanos that blotted out most of the eastern sky, but he ruefully realized that he wasn’t going to make it go away by not looking at it. “Have you managed to come up with a way to pacify Sorgan yet?” he asked.
“Let’s try ‘emergency.’”
“You missed me there, I’m afraid.”
Longbow shrugged. “Zelana left in a hurry. Doesn’t that sort of hint that there might be a crisis somewhere that needed her immediate attention?”
“We can try it, I suppose,” Red-Beard said a bit dubiously. “Trying to persuade Hook-Beak that there’s something in the world more important than he is might be a bit difficult, though.”
“We’ll see,” Longbow replied as Red-Beard eased his canoe in against the
Seagull.
“Did she finally decide to come home?” Rabbit called down to them from the
Seagull
’s deck. “If the cap’n doesn’t get the gold she promised him pretty soon, he might just start a whole new war.”
“We’d really rather that he didn’t, Rabbit,” Longbow called back. “Red-Beard and I’ve come to see if we can calm him down a bit.”
Rabbit pushed the rolled-up ladder off the rail, and it unwound its way down to the canoe.
Longbow took hold of the ladder. “It’s time to go to work, Chief Red-Beard,” he said with a faint smile.
“I
wish
you’d stop that, Longbow.”
“Just trying to help you get used to it, friend Red-Beard,” Longbow replied with feigned innocence.
Sorgan Hook-Beak of the Land of Maag was in a foul temper when Red-Beard and Longbow entered his cluttered cabin at the stern of the
Seagull.
“Where
is
she?” he demanded in a harsh voice. “If I don’t start handing out the gold I promised all these people back in Maag, things are going to start getting ugly around here. We did what she wanted us to do, and now it’s time to settle up.”
“We really can’t be certain just
where
she went, Sorgan,” Longbow replied. “Her Domain’s very large, and there might just be an emergency somewhere off to the north of here. When a fire breaks out somewhere, you don’t really have time to be polite before you rush off to put it out. I’m sure that as soon as she gets things under control, she’ll come right back.”
“I guess that sort of makes sense,” Sorgan grudgingly conceded. “Have you got any idea at all of where this new trouble might be?”
Longbow shrugged. “She didn’t bother to tell me. You know how that goes.”
“Oh, yes,” Sorgan said sourly. “She’s an expert when it comes to
not
telling people things they should know, I’ve noticed.”
“How very perceptive of you,” Longbow murmured. “I’m sure she’ll be back as soon as she’s dealt with whatever it was that pulled her away from here, but we’ve got another problem that’s a bit more pressing.”
“Oh?”
“The fire mountains up at the head of the ravine are still spouting, and I don’t think Lattash will be a safe place for anybody when the liquid rock comes boiling down the ravine. A flood of water’s bad enough, but a flood of liquid rock might be a lot worse, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’d say that it’ll go a long way past ‘might,’ Longbow. What should we do about it?”
“How does ‘run away’ sound to you?”
“Narasan tells me that the proper term is ‘retreat,’ but ‘run away’ sounds close enough to me.”
“We
do
have a bit of a problem, though,” Longbow continued. “Red-Beard’s uncle, Chief White-Braid, can’t quite accept the idea that the tribe will have to move away from Lattash. Red-Beard and I are sort of sneaking around behind his back right now, so we’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention what we’re doing if you happen to speak with him.”