“We heard that he’d died not too long ago,” Gunda said. “What killed him, anyway?”
“Old age,” Sleeps-With-Dogs replied. “No matter how many wars we win, old age will end up killing us all.”
“That’s a gloomy way of looking at things,” Gunda said in a sour tone of voice.
“Always look on the dark side, friend Gunda,” Sleeps-With-Dogs replied. “Then, if you get killed with an arrow or a spear, it brightens things up, wouldn’t you say?”
Two-Hands covered his mouth so that Gunda couldn’t see his grin.
It was not much later when the side of one of the snow-heaps down on the slope buckled outward and a somewhat larger than usual bug-man kicked its way out into the open.
“Am I seeing things right?” Gunda asked. “It looks to me like that overgrown bug is wearing one of the bison-hide cloaks that the Matans gave us to keep us from freezing to death.”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Longbow agreed. “I’d say that it’s much more likely that the Vlagh saw how useful they are, and she modified a new hatch to add those cloaks.”
“He’s carrying a spear as well,” Two-Hands noted. “Can the Vlagh take things that far?”
“The bugs have been stealing those spears for a long time now,” Gunda said. “They pillage battlefields to steal weapons from dead men.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Gunda,” Longbow said. “Spears will reach out quite some distance, but arrows reach farther, and we have a lot of archers here—and fire-missiles as well. I’ve noticed that the Vlagh usually depends on numbers when she goes to war, but numbers don’t mean much when the bug-people come up against arrows and fire-missiles.”
“You know,” Kathlak, Longbow’s Tonthakan friend, said, “I noticed the same thing during the Crystal Gorge war. What do you think, Longbow? Should we start picking them off as soon as they come out of those snow-piles, or should we wait until most of them are out in the open?”
“Let’s hold off until they get closer,” Longbow replied. “Let’s not waste arrows trying to hit them at long range. Then too, the snow’s quite shallow up here at the top of the slope, and Ekial has horse-soldiers more or less hidden near the upper end of Long-Pass. We should be able to drop thousands of bug-people with our arrows, and then the horse-soldiers will be able to kill many, many more.”
Two-Hands saw that the bug-people weren’t able to move very fast as they came by the thousands up the slope. It was quite obvious that they weren’t at all familiar with snow and its drawbacks. After a few hundred of the bug-people had waded through the snow, they’d packed it down to the point that it was very nearly solid ice, and nobody—man or bug—can move very fast when walking on ice.
“What do you think, Longbow?” Kathlak asked.
“They’re probably close enough now,” Longbow agreed. “Do you want to give the order?”
“Why don’t you do it?” Kathlak suggested. “Nobody argues with you when you give orders.”
“All right,” Longbow agreed. Then he took a long breath and shouted, “Shoot!”
The arrows swept out in a vast wave from the top of Gunda’s fort, and the front ranks of the advancing enemies toppled like fresh-cut wheat. The piles of dead bug-men were almost like a wall that blocked off the advance of the ones coming up the slope behind those first ranks. Then the horse-soldier Ekial shouted, “Charge!” and his men galloped across the upper end of the slope, killing thousands more of their enemies.
Then there came the sound of a trumpet, and the horse-soldiers pulled back. Two-Hands was just a bit awed by how smoothly things had gone for them. Then the young Trogite called Keselo shouted “Shoot!,” but he wasn’t talking about arrows. Great gobs of burning pitch came over the front wall of Gunda’s fort, and absolute chaos brought the charge of the bug-men to a dead stop as burning bugs ran this way and that through the snow.
“Don’t they know that all they have to do to put out those fires is roll around in the snow?” Two-Hands asked Longbow.
“Not really,” Longbow replied. “These particular bugs come from a desert, so they probably don’t know that snow is just another form of water.”
The winter sun was going down off to the west, and it touched the clouds of smoke with light that the smoke made bright red.
“I’ve always sort of liked sunsets,” Gunda said. “The best thing about a sunset is that it means supper-time, and I’m starting to get very hungry.”
THE
ALTERNATE
1
Omago’s Dream had released his memories of times long past, and now he knew just who—and what—he really was, and that knowledge had shaken him down to his very core.
Now that things were quieter, he felt that the time had come for him to get a better grip on that stunning reality, but he needed to be alone for that. And so, as midnight approached, he went up to the top of the main wall of Gunda’s fort at the head of Long-Pass.
The weather was bitterly cold, but it came to Omago from out of the distant past that he was immune to weather—cold or hot—and he had no real need of air to breathe or food to eat. He sent his memory back to the time some thirty years ago when he’d first revealed his plan to Ara.
“It’s something we need to know, dear heart,” he’d explained. “The minds of the man-things here in the Land of Dhrall are unlike the minds of any of the other creatures here, and I think the best way to find out just why would be to erase all previous memories and live out the life of an ordinary man-thing.”
“I don’t see any particular value in your plan, Omago,” Ara had replied. “A prince or a chieftain might have some knowledge you’d find useful, but the ordinaries have trouble distinguishing night from day.”
“They’re not really that bad, Ara. Princes and chieftains have very little contact with reality. They spend most of their time trying to avoid reality. I’ve been considering the life of an ordinary farmer—most probably in the Domain of Veltan of the South.”
“Why there, dear heart?”
“Apple-blossoms, Ara,” he’d replied. “I think they’re the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever encountered in this world—or any others in this part of the universe. I need beauty, Ara. That’s why we’ve been together for so long. Your beauty has held me captive since the beginning of time when we first added forms to our awareness.”
“Flattery won’t get you very far, Omago.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that, dear heart,” Omago had replied with a sudden smile. Then he’d grown more serious. “There’s another reason that I think I should stay close to Veltan. As far as I can determine, he’s the best teacher of all the gods. Dahlaine’s too busy being important, and Vash and Dakas are just a bit abrupt and not really very bright.”
“What’s wrong with the females?”
“Males and females don’t think alike, Ara. Haven’t you ever noticed that? I have a strong feeling that something very important will happen in the Land of Dhrall. The man-things of this world will continue to exist, or will become extinct, because of something that will take place in that obscure part of this world. There’s a creature there that wants to obliterate them, and if the man-things are obliterated there, they’ll also be eliminated in all parts of this world. I need to find out what that thing is and stop it—or even destroy it, if I have to.”
Ara had sighed. “You aren’t giving me too much room here, dear heart,” she’d accused him. “Go ahead with this game of yours, but I’m not going to let you play alone. I’ll be with you, like it or not, and I know who you really are. If you make any serious mistakes, I’ll be there, and I’ll be able to step in if it’s necessary.”
“I would miss you, dear heart,” Omago confessed.
“Don’t worry, Omago. I’ll see to it that you don’t.”
Omago clearly remembered the early years of his alternate identity when Veltan had given the young man a surprisingly complete education. As the young man had grown older, the other farmer
s of the region had taken to using him as a “messenger-boy” of sorts to convey information to Veltan rather than going up the hill to Veltan’s massive house on their own. It wasn’t that they were actually afraid of Veltan, but he was a god, after all. The farmer version of Omago had dutifully carried that information up to Veltan’s house, and as time went on, he’d added his own assessment of the various farmers of the region. For example, he’d told Veltan that the little farmer called Selga was much more interested in gaining Veltan’s respect than he was in passing warnings and the like to the local god.
The farmer version of Omago hadn’t had much interest in women during his early years, and the elder version knew exactly why. Ara had quite obviously been tampering. Omago actually laughed when he realized that.
“What’s so funny?” Ara’s voice came out of nowhere along about then.
“Nothing, dear heart,” Omago lied. “I just remembered something that was sort of amusing, is all.”
Then Omago the elder quite vividly remembered Ara’s rather blunt proposal. Her words still jumped out at him. “My name is Ara,” she’d begun. “I’m sixteen years old, and I want you.”
“It did get right to the point,” the elder conceded, “but it might have been just a little too specific to drop on someone as innocent as my alternate was.”
The more Omago considered things, though, it came to him that his true identity had unobtrusively stepped in on several occasions. When Veltan had given the young farmer version of Omago the iron knife, it had been the eternal version that had guided the younger one through the invention of the spear.
The older version had also nudged the younger into the notion of what Keselo had called “The Phalanx.” The younger Omago was not as totally innocent as he’d appeared right at first—largely because the elder Omago had been tampering for all he was worth. The grand plan of the original Omago seemed to have had quite a few holes in it.
When the foul-mouthed Jalkan had insulted Ara, however, young Omago had punched him squarely in the face without any help at all from eternal Omago, and he’d done it so fast that it had actually startled his eternal awareness.
“He did show some promise there,” eternal Omago murmured with a faint smile.
He spent the next hour or so remembering the experiences of his alternate personality. Despite his lack of training, younger Omago had been clever and resourceful during the war in Veltan’s Domain, and even more so during the war in the North.
“Enough of that,” he murmured. He and his mate had been drawn to the Land of Dhrall by their certainty that something would happen here that would prevent the extermination of the man-things here on this world. The events here during the past three seasons had made it abundantly clear that That-Called-the-Vlagh would be the exterminator. If she succeeded here, she would move on to the other parts of this world and delete the man-things in each of those as well. Given a few years, there would no longer be man-things anywhere on this world, and then the Vlagh would produce offspring by the millions, and they would spread out and kill off all other living creatures. “Not as long as I’m around, they won’t,” Omago vowed to himself. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that the Alcevan creature would be the key to the obliteration of the man-things, and if they stopped Alcevan, they could surely stop the Vlagh as well.
But how?
“Have we turned into night-creatures now, Omago?” the somber-faced archer Longbow asked.
Omago was startled. “Can’t you make a little noise before you do that, Longbow?” he demanded.
“That might be just a little difficult, friend Omago,” Longbow replied, holding up one of his feet and pointing at the soft leather shoe he wore.
“You could always cough, or something,” Omago said sourly.
“Is there some reason why you’re still awake in the middle of the night?” Longbow asked.
“Something that might turn out to be very important,” Omago replied. “It’s important enough anyway that I don’t think I’ll sleep very much until I find some way to deal with it.”
“Oh?”
“The Vlagh has many servants—or children, actually—but most of them are as stupid as rocks. If what I’ve heard actually happened, the Alcevan creature is far, far more intelligent. If that’s true, the children of the Vlagh will quite probably defeat us. I think, however, that I’ve come up with a way to defeat her instead. What I really need right now is more information about the nature of her servants.”
Longbow’s expression changed slightly at that point. “You’re not really just an ordinary farmer, are you, Omago?” he asked.
“Well—” Omago left it sort of up in the air.
“I didn’t really think so. I don’t think your mate would have been very interested in somebody whose main purpose in life was picking apples or growing beans.”
Omago felt just a bit crestfallen about then. “Have I been that obvious?”
Longbow smiled. “I’ve come to know Ara very well since the war in Veltan’s Domain. You two have been here for a long, long time, haven’t you?”
“From even before the beginning, yes.”
“But you weren’t aware of that until just recently, right?”
“How did you know that?” Omago demanded.
“You probably shouldn’t have told your mate about that dream you’d had. She was very upset when you told her about it. She wanted me to do something about it. I’m not sure just what she wanted me to do, but she laid it in my lap. That’s why we’re having this present conversation. What made you think that it was time to shed that farmer pose and become the real eternal Omago?”
Omago smiled. “Ara does that every so often,” he said. “She didn’t really like the idea of a simple-minded Omago, but now she wants to defend him—even though he’s not particularly useful now. My original intention was to be just an ordinary farmer so that I’d understand the man-things here in the Land of Dhrall. You people here do things that nobody else in this whole world would ever do. I wanted to see things the way that the native people of the Land of Dhrall see them, but evidently my mind has ways to step around any restrictions I’ve laid upon it—probably when an emergency pops up.”
“Omago,” Longbow asserted then, “we’ve been neck-deep in emergency since last spring. Did your mind just now wake up to that?”
“I think it might have been the Alcevan creature that shook it awake. The Vlagh—or her children—have come up with a way to eliminate people—all people, I think. That odor they use makes people believe whatever the Vlagh wants them to believe. It was fairly crude over in Tonthakan, but the Alcevan creature took it much, much farther, and eliminated Aracia in the process. I’ll get to Alcevan in good time, but right now I think I need to know more about the Vlagh creature herself.”
“I’ve seen her servants many times,” Longbow replied, “but the only time I’ve ever seen her was back in Veltan’s Domain when her servants were carrying her back out into the Wasteland. What is it that you want to know about her?”
“I need to know where she lives, and just who takes care of her.”
“You might want to speak with Dahlaine,” Longbow suggested. “He’s fairly busy right now, though. I think that Keselo might be able to tell us quite a lot about the world of bugs. He told me once that he used study as an excuse to avoid doing honest work, and he spent a lot of time studying the world of fishes and birds—maybe he studied bugs as well. Why don’t we go wake him up? As long as you and I are awake, we might as well rouse him too, wouldn’t you say?”
“My teachers at the University of Kaldacin weren’t really all that interested in insects,” Keselo told them when they asked him about the world of bugs. “They had a fair grasp of the nature of bees, of course, since honey can be quite valuable. They also warned us about locusts and ants, but that was about as far as it went. I have picked up quite a bit of information about the Vlagh from Dahlaine, though. Maybe you should ask him. When you get righ
t down to it, though, I’ve picked up just about everything I know about bugs from you, Longbow—and from your Shaman, One-Who-Heals. Is it at all possible that the Vlagh had your shaman killed because he knew too much about her and her children?”
“That gives me another good reason to kill her,” Longbow said. Then he paused. “Male bugs aren’t really very important, are they?”
“Only at breeding time,” Keselo replied. “There’s no such thing as a king bee—or a king ant.”
“Has Dahlaine ever found the exact location of the nest of the Vlagh?” Omago asked.
“Oh, yes,” Keselo replied. “He knows exactly where she is. If it was permitted, he could probably obliterate her and all of her children.” The young Trogite frowned. “That’s one thing I’ve never understood. Dahlaine is a god, and he can do almost anything—except kill any living creature. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if chopping down a tree would obliterate him.”
“It worked quite well recently,” Longbow said. “Aracia really wanted to obliterate Enalla. Wars between various people aren’t really all that significant, but a war between gods might just set the world on fire.”
“Has Dahlaine ever described the servants of the Vlagh?” Omago asked. “I mean, just exactly what are they supposed to do?”
“They feed Mother,” Keselo replied, “and keep her warm, of course. I’m just guessing here, but I’d say that if there wasn’t anything for the Vlagh to eat, her servants would offer her themselves, and they’d set themselves on fire if she started to shiver. Self-sacrifice seems to show up quite often in the nest of the Vlagh.”
“I think we might be getting somewhere now,” Omago said. “The Vlagh has been modifying her children since last spring. She’s been turning them into imitation people—except that they have no sense at all of self. If there was some way that we could give them a sense of personal identity, they might not be so eager to sacrifice themselves.”
The Younger Gods Page 25