Zelana swam out of her hidden grotto and onto a nearby gravel beach where the waves rolled in and then receded with a mournful sound that seemed filled with regret. Then she raised her face to the sky to search for one of those winds that rushed far overhead in perpetuity, streaming eternally above the clouds and weather. She encountered several, but they were not moving in the proper direction, so she continued her search. Then at last she felt a wind that streamed northward toward the Domain of her elder brother, and she rose up and up through the buffeting of those winds which had not suited her until she reached that wind which rushed northward along the outer edge of the sky, and she bestrode that wind, and it obediently carried her toward the bleak Domain of her brother Dahlaine.
Now Dahlaine dwelt in a cave deep in the bowels of the earth beneath the crags and eternal snow of Mount Shrak, which the people of the North believe is the tallest peak in all the world. And Zelana descended from the darkouter edge of the sky to the forbidding mountain that seemed almost to scowl down at her brother’s Domain with a bleak expression of superiority. The mouth of Dahlaine’s cave was a deep indentation in the north side of the mount, and Zelana entered there and followed the twisting passage that led down and down through glittering black rock to the vast chamber far beneath the mountain that was Dahlaine’s home.
Zelana paused at the mouth of the passage. Her burly, grey-bearded brother, stripped to the waist, was standing over a ruddy fire beating on something that glowed and made a sort of ringing sound. A small, glowing orb hovered just over him, bathing him with light.
‘What in the world are you doing, Dahlaine?’ Zelana asked curiously.
Dahlaine turned sharply to look at his sister. ‘Why, Zelana!’ he exclaimed. ‘You startled me. Is something wrong?’
‘Perhaps – or perhaps not. Are you taking up music now? If you are, you’re a little off-key.’
‘Just experimenting, dear sister,’ he replied. ‘Some of the people beyond Mother Sea have discovered something they call “metal.” I wanted to see if I could duplicate it. Is something afoot?’
Zelana looked cautiously around Dahlaine’s cave. ‘Where’s your Dreamer?’ she asked.
‘Ashad? He’s out playing with the bears.’
‘Bears? Surely you don’t allow him to play with bears! They’ll eat him, won’t they?’
‘Of course they won’t, Zelana. They’re his friends – in the same way the pink dolphins are Eleria’s friends. Is something unusual happening?’
‘Perhaps. Eleria had a dream last night, and I think it may have been significant. I thought you should know about it. There’s something else that may be even more significant than the dream itself.’
‘Oh?’
‘It appears that Mother Sea’s taking a hand in this herself.’ Dahlaine stared at her.
‘Eleria was out playing with the young pink dolphins yesterday, and they introduced her to an old cow whale.’
‘I didn’t know that whales and dolphins spoke the same language,’ Dahlaine said.
‘They don’t. That’s what leads me to believe that it wasn’t really a whale. Anyway, the old cow led Eleria to a small islet off the south coast of Thurn and showed her an oyster shell that was about fifty times bigger than any oyster I’ve ever seen. Then the whale touched the shell with one of her fins, and the oyster opened as if someone had just knocked on its door. There was a pearl inside – pink, and a bit larger than an apple.’
‘That’s impossible!’ Dahlaine exclaimed.
‘You’ll have to take that up with the oyster, Dahlaine. Then the whale told Eleria that the oyster wanted her to have the pearl, so Eleria took it, and the whale gave her a ride back to Thurn.’
‘Now that’s something I’d like to see,’ Dahlaine said, laughing. ‘It might be a bit difficult to saddle a whale.’
‘Did you want to hear the rest of this, or did you want to make funny remarks?’ Zelana said tartly.
‘Sorry, dear sister. Please go on.’
‘Eleria’d had a busy day, so she was very tired. She went to sleep almost immediately, and then some very strange things started to happen. That pink pearl rose up into the air above Eleria, and it started to glow – almost like a small pink moon – and its light shone down on Eleria. Then it spoke to me and told me to mind my own business. I recognized the voice immediately, since I’ve been listening to it since the beginning of time.’
‘You’re not serious!’ Dahlaine exclaimed.
‘Very serious, brother dear. It was the voice of Mother Sea, and that seems to suggest that the whale might have been something other than an ordinary whale as well, wouldn’t you say?’
‘She’s never done that before,’ Dahlaine said in a troubled voice.
‘You’re being obvious again, Dahlaine,’ Zelana said. ‘I think we’d better step around her very carefully until we get a better idea of what she’s doing and why. Mother Sea’s the central force of the whole world, so let’s stay on the good side of her.’
‘What happened next?’ Dahlaine asked.
‘Eleria had a dream, naturally. Evidently, that was the whole idea. In some peculiar way, that pearl’s the essence of Mother Sea’s awareness. Her tides still rise and fall, and her waves wash the shores of Father Earth, but she’s awake now. I’m almost positive that the pearl, which is really Mother Sea incarnate, dictated Eleria’s dream, image by image.’
‘Did Eleria tell you about her dream?’
‘Of course she did. Why do you think I’m here?’
‘What did the dream involve?’
‘The world,’ Zelana replied. ‘Eleria saw it when it was still on fire before the continents separated and before life began. Then she saw the continents move away from each other and watched living things crawl up out of Mother Sea. She saw the big lizards roam the world and the falling star that killed them all. She was aware of us and of the others – the ones who are asleep now – and somehow she knew about the Vlagh. She saw the age of ice and then the more recent man-things. As closely as I can determine, she dreamt all the way from the beginning up until the day before yesterday.’
‘She managed to dream all of that in one night?’ Dahlaine said incredulously.
‘She had help, Dahlaine. I’m sure that the pearl was guiding her step by step. I think we’d better advise our alternates what’s afoot here. Our cycle’s very nearly reached its conclusion, and our alternates will be waking soon. We’d better warn them that the crisis we’ve been expecting since the beginning’s very likely to boil to the top during their cycle.’
‘That’s assuming that it doesn’t come before our cycle’s finished,’ Dahlaine said. ‘I think that we’d all better get together and thrash this out. Why don’t you go fetch Aracia, and I’ll see if I can run Veltan down. We need to make some decisions, and we might not have much time.’
‘It shall be as thou hast commanded, my dear, dear brother,’ Zelana replied with exaggerated formality.
‘Do you have to do that, Zelana?’ he said with a pained sort of expression.
‘When you’re being obvious, yes. Go get Veltan, Dahlaine, and I’ll see if I can pry holy Aracia out of that silly temple of hers. Do we want to meet here?’
‘I think we’d better. It’s more secluded than the other places – except for yours, of course. We could meet there, I suppose, but Veltan doesn’t swim very well. And let’s keep the