‘I will want to take you and Narasan – and any others you might want to bring along – up to my house,’ Veltan added. ‘I’ve put together a map that you’d better have a look at. The terrain where we’ll be fighting this time’s much steeper than the ravine above Lattash was.’
Sorgan shrugged. ‘I’ll bring Ox and Ham-Hand,’ he said. ‘When you get right down to it, though, this is Narasan’s war. I just came along for the ride.’
‘That’s not true, and you know it, Sorgan,’ Narasan flared.
‘Maybe not,’ Sorgan replied with a wicked grin, ‘but this time we’re going to do things your way. That means that I get to blame you when things go wrong.’
‘You’re all heart, Sorgan,’ Narasan said sourly.
‘I thought you might have noticed that,’ Sorgan replied, grinning even more broadly.
Omago saw that the two widely different men had apparently developed a strong friendship during the course of the war in the West, and he believed that would probably be very useful when trouble arrived.
‘Just exactly how’s the church organized here in the Land of Dhrall?’ the thin, leather-clad Trogite called Jalkan asked Omago curiously as they were all following the path from the beach through the wheat fields to Veltan’s house.
‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ Omago replied. ‘What exactly do you mean by “church”?’
‘Priests. The ones who lead the people in their prayers and make sure that they aren’t violating the articles of the faith.’ Jalkan seemed very curious about this.
‘We don’t have anything like that here in Veltan’s Domain,’ Omago replied. ‘I’ve heard that there’s something along those lines over in the Domain of his sister Aracia, but Veltan doesn’t seem to think we need anything like that here in the southland. If someone wants to ask Veltan a question, they can just go up to his house and talk with him about it, but they usually go through me for some reason.’
‘Are you saying that you talk directly with your god?’ Jalkan demanded in a shocked voice.
‘That’s why he’s there, isn’t it?’
‘But—’ Jalkan floundered.
‘Different places have different customs, I guess,’ Omago said.
‘We’re fairly relaxed here in the South.’
‘Where are all the gold mines located?’ Jalkan quickly changed the subject. ‘That’s what this war’s all about, isn’t it? I mean, these invaders we’ll be fighting are coming here because they want your gold, don’t they?’
‘I doubt it. I don’t think the servants of the Vlagh are very interested in the yellow metal some people use for trinkets. The Vlagh wants our land and the food we grow.’
Jalkan’s expression turned suspicious, and he abruptly stalked away.
‘I wouldn’t answer too many of that one’s questions, Omago,’ the tall archer Longbow suggested quietly. ‘The other Trogites don’t like him very much. He’s very greedy, and he doesn’t treat his men too well.’
‘These outlanders are peculiar, aren’t they?’
Longbow smiled faintly. ‘They seem to think that we’re the peculiar ones. Their lives are very complicated, but we try our best to keep everything simple. I’m not sure exactly why, but that seems to offend them for some reason.’
‘I’ll be glad when this is all over and they pack up and go home.’
‘You’re not alone there, friend Omago.’
‘That’s impossible!’ the Trogite called Padan exclaimed, staring in awe at Veltan’s house. ‘It’s all one solid rock!’
Veltan shrugged. ‘It keeps the bad weather out,’ he said. ‘I noticed back in Kaldacin that most of the fancy buildings down there let in a lot of cold air.’
‘How did you do that?’
‘Are you sure that you really want to know, Padan?’ Veltan asked with a sly little grin.
Padan gave him a quick, slightly startled look. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’m getting a strong notion that I won’t sleep too well if you tell me exactly how you made it.’
‘Let’s all go on inside, friends,’ Veltan said to the outlanders. ‘I stole an idea from Rabbit and made a detailed map of the region where we’ll probably meet the enemy. I think you should all have a look at it so you’ll know what we’ll be coming up against.’
Omago waited near the door until Ara joined him. ‘How’s Yaltar?’ he asked his wife quietly.
‘Not all that well, dear,’ Ara replied. ‘As I understand it, he had to do something fairly awful up there in Zelana’s Domain, and it’s really bothering him. Zelana’s doing what she can to calm him, but about the only thing that helps him is holding Eleria’s hand.’
‘Are you going to stay with them?’ Omago asked her.
‘I think I’d better, dear. We’ll be in the kitchen. I’ll need to fix supper for these outlanders anyway, and the smell of cooking food usually makes Yaltar feel better.’
Omago smiled. ‘The smell of your cooking makes everybody feel better, dear heart,’ he said fondly.
‘It seems that way, doesn’t it? Run along, dear. Veltan might need some help explaining things to the strangers.’
Omago rejoined the others, and they trailed along behind Veltan and entered a large room that so far as Omago could recall he’d never seen before. That wasn’t really unusual, though. Every now and then Veltan rearranged his house, switching the locations of various rooms for no particular reason.
‘This is my map-room,’ Veltan announced with a certain pride. ‘It’s sort of based on your war-room back in Kaldacin, Commander Narasan, but there are a few variations.’
‘I noticed that,’ the Trogite commander said with a kind of awe in his voice. The room was circular, and the doorway opened onto a sort of balcony that was perhaps ten feet above the floor. The map Veltan had constructed lay down below, and so far as Omago could determine, it was a perfect duplicate of the mountainous country around the Falls of Vash. Omago knew that Veltan was gifted, but the map was astonishingly accurate.
‘Where’s all that water coming from?’ Sorgan Hook-Beak asked. ‘I don’t see any little streams leading into that river that’s tumbling over the edge of the cliff.’
‘It comes up from beneath the ground,’ Veltan explained. ‘It’s a bit quiet right now. Every now and then it gets sort of excited, and the water spurts about a hundred feet up into the air.’
‘Did you put that there, Veltan?’ the young Trogite Keselo asked.
Veltan shook his head. ‘I think an earthquake might have caused it. The ground’s a bit unstable under those mountains.’
‘The ground up there by that waterfall’s a whole lot steeper than what we encountered in the ravine above Lattash,’ Sorgan observed. ‘That might give us a bit of trouble on down the line.’
‘Could you come up with a notion of just when we can expect the enemy to reach that area, Veltan?’ Commander Narasan asked.
‘We’re encountering the same problem we came up against in the ravine above Lattash,’ Veltan replied. ‘My brother’s Dreamer told him where, but he couldn’t be very specific about when.’
‘If they’ve been boring tunnels under the ground, they might be up there waiting for us already,’ Padan suggested.
‘No,’