The extensive tunnels had kept the servants of the Vlagh out of the blazing sunlight, but that had only been the first problem they had been forced to solve. As the centuries had passed, the changed climate had gradually killed all the vegetation in that previously lush region, so there was no longer sufficient food to support a growing population.
The Vlagh had continued to lay eggs, of course, but each hatch had produced fewer and fewer offspring, and the Vlagh had come face to face with the distinct possibility of the extinction of its species.
When the burrowing insects had reached the mountains, they’d encountered solid stone, and their progress had stopped at that point. Not long after that, however, they’d discovered the caves lying beneath those mountains, and the species which should have gone extinct lived on.
I’m of two minds about caves. I love mine, but I hate theirs.
Anyway, the servants of the Vlagh had encountered other creatures in the caves and mountains, and evidently the overmind had realized that some of those creatures had characteristics which might prove to be very useful, and it had begun to experiment – or tamper – producing peculiar and highly unnatural variations.
I rather ruefully conceded that the experiment which had produced what Sorgan Hook-Beak of the Land of Maag colorfully called ‘the snake-men’ had been extremely successful, though I can’t for the life of me understand exactly how the Vlagh had produced a creature that was part bug, part reptile, and part warm-blooded mammal that closely resembled a human being.
Biological impossibilities irritate me to no end.
I will admit, though, that had it not been for the near genius of the Shaman One-Who-Heals, the creatures of the Wasteland would probably have won the war in my sister’s Domain.
Ashad made a peculiar little sound, and I got up from my chair and crossed in the dim light of our cavern to the stone bench that served as his bed to make sure that he was all right. He was nestled down under his fur robe with his eyes closed, though, so I was sure that he wasn’t having any problems. Our discovery that our Dreamer-children weren’t able to live on light alone had made us all a little jumpy. It wasn’t the sort of thing we wanted to gamble with. Then we came face to face with the question of breathing. Veltan’s ten eons on the face of the moon had been a clear demonstration of the fact that we didn’t really need to breathe. Many of our pet people were fishermen, though, and drowning happens quite often. Even though our Dreamer-children were actually gods, their present condition strongly suggested that they needed air to breathe and food to eat, and none of us was in the mood to take any chances.
Ashad was still breathing in and out, though, so I went on back to my chair. I let my mind drift back to Ashad’s first few hours here in my cave. If anybody with a cruel mind would like to see a god in a state of pure panic, I think he missed his chance. Panic had run rampant in my family that day. As soon as Ashad started screaming at me, I went all to pieces. Eventually, though, I remembered a peculiarity of the bears which share my Domain with deer, people and wild cows. She-bears give birth to their cubs during their yearly hibernation cycle, and their cubs attend to the business of nursing all on their own. Then I remembered that a she-bear called Broken-Tooth customarily hibernated in a cave that was no more than a mile away.
Still caught up in sheer panic, I grabbed up my howling Dreamer and ran to Mama Broken-Tooth’s cave. She’d already given birth to the cub Long-Claw, and he was contentedly nursing when I entered the cave. Fortunately, I didn’t have to argue with him. He was nice enough to move aside just a bit, and I introduced Ashad to bear’s milk.
His crying stopped immediately.
Peculiarly – or maybe not – Ashad and Long-Claw were absolutely positive that they were brothers, and after they’d both nursed their fill of Mama Broken-Tooth’s milk, they began to play with each other.
I remained in the cave until Mama Broken-Tooth awakened. She sniffed briefly at her two cubs – totally ignoring the fact that one of them didn’t look at all like a bear – and then she gently nestled them against her bearish bosom as if there was nothing at all peculiar taking place. Of course, bears don’t really see very well, so they rely instead on their sense of smell and after two weeks of rolling around on the dirt floor of the cave, Ashad had most definitely had a bearish fragrance about him.
Ashad slept until almost noon, but my flaxen-haired little boy still seemed exhausted when he rose, pulled on his tan leather smock and joined me at our table. ‘Good morning, uncle,’ he greeted me as he sank wearily into his chair. Almost absently, he pulled the large bowl full of red berries he’d brought home the previous evening in front of him and began to eat them one at a time. His appetite didn’t seem quite normal, for some reason.
‘Is something bothering you, Ashad?’ I asked him.
‘I had a nightmare last night, uncle,’ the boy replied, absently fondling a shiny black stone that was about twice the size of an eagle’s egg. ‘It seemed that I was standing on nothing but air, and I was way up in the sky looking down at the Domain of Vash. The country down there in the South doesn’t look at all like our country up here, does it?’
There it was again. Ashad obviously knew Yaltar’s true name, even as Eleria did. ‘The people of the South are farmers, Ashad,’ I explained. ‘They grow much of their food in the ground instead of concentrating on hunting the way our people do. They had to cut down the trees to give themselves open ground for planting, so the land down there doesn’t look at all like the land up here. What else happened in your dream?’
Ashad pushed his yellow hair out of his eyes. ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘it seemed that there were a whole lot of those nasty things coming into the Domain of Vash – sort of like the things that crawled down into Balacenia’s Domain a little while ago.’ The boy put the shiny black stone down on the table and ate more of the red berries.
There it was again. It was obvious now that the Dreamers were, perhaps unconsciously, stepping over the barrier I’d so carefully set up between them and their past.
‘Anyway,’ Ashad continued, ‘there were outlanders there, and they were fighting the nasty things just like they did in Balacenia’s Domain, but then things got very confusing. A whole lot of other outlanders came up across Mother Sea from the South, but it didn’t seem like they were interested in the war very much, because they spent all their time talking to the farmers about somebody called Amar. The ones who were doing all the talking were wearing black robes, but there were some others who wore red clothes, and they were pushing the farmers around and making them listen while the ones in black talked. That went on for quite a while, and then the outlanders in the South got all excited, and they started to run north toward a great big waterfall, and the other outlanders – the ones who got there first – sort of got out of their way for while, and then when everybody got to that waterfall, it looked to me like everybody was trying to kill everybody else, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t understand exactly what was going on.’
‘I’ve heard that dreams are like that, Ashad. I don’t need to sleep, so I don’t really know what dreams are all about.’ I hesitated. ‘Where did you find that shiny black rock?’ I asked, more to change the subject than out of any real curiosity.
‘It was in the back of the cave where Mama Broken-Tooth sleeps in the winter,’ Ashad replied. ‘She had three cubs while she was sleeping this past winter, and while you were busy helping your sister Zelana, I went to her cave to see them. They’re sort of the brothers of me and Long-Claw, aren’t they? I mean, Mama Broken-Tooth nursed me and Long-Claw when we were just cubs, and now she’s nursing the three new ones. That sort of makes