The Younger Gods

by David Eddings

“Persuade one of the others to do it instead, maybe?” Keselo suggested.

  “That would probably be the first step,” Omago agreed.

  “They’d have to have names then,” Keselo added. “The name lies at the very core of personal identity.” He hesitated slightly. “I didn’t come up with that all by myself,” he admitted. “One of my teachers at the university dropped it on us. He made quite an issue of it when he told us that a man without a name is not a man. He never got around to telling us just exactly what a man without a name really was, though.”

  “We’ll have to pick up Rabbit before we go out into the Wasteland,” Longbow reminded them.

  Omago blinked, and then he felt a bit embarrassed. “We will, won’t we?” he said. “I should have thought of that myself.”

  “And now we are—or will be—four,” Keselo declared quite formally. Then he laughed. “Sorry,” he apologized. “It was just too good an opportunity to let slide by.”

  2

  Are you certain that we’re really going to need that Maag called Rabbit?” Omago asked Longbow and Keselo a bit later.

  “He’s very clever,” Keselo replied, “and on several occasions he’s come up with ways to accomplish things that never would have even occurred to me.” The young Trogite smiled. “It just wouldn’t be the same without him,” he added.

  “Do either of you have any idea of exactly where I might be able to locate him?”

  “Sorgan Hook-Beak would know,” Longbow replied, “and Sorgan’s almost certainly in Aracia’s temple—stealing everything of value in that oversized building. I can go down there and find him, if you like.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Longbow,” Omago replied. “I have certain advantages that aren’t available to you.”

  “You’re going to fly, I take it.”

  “Well—sort of,” Omago said. “I can go from here to there very fast when it’s necessary.”

  “You have a tame thunderbolt the same as Dahlaine has?” Keselo asked.

  Omago smiled. “Not exactly,” he said. “Why don’t we just leave it there? It’s one of those things you really don’t want to know about. Rabbit and I should be here in a day or so. Then we can go to the nest of the Vlagh and see what we can do to disrupt things for her.”

  Omago went down the stone staircase to the center of Gunda’s fort, and when he was out of the sight of Longbow and Keselo, he rose rapidly up into the still, night-dark air and willed himself to the shabby stone building Aracia’s overweight priests had constructed to make their owner happy.

  He sent out his thought in search of Rabbit, but the little smith wasn’t there. He did sense the presence of Sorgan’s cousin Torl, however, and he dropped down into the temple to have a few words with the clever Maag. “I’ve been looking for Rabbit,” he said, “but I can’t seem to find him anywhere here.”

  “You’re the farmer called Omago, aren’t you?” Torl asked.

  “That’s me all right,” Omago replied. “Longbow the archer wants to have a few words with Rabbit, but I can’t find the little fellow.”

  “He’s out in the harbor on board that Trogite tub called the Ascension,” Torl said. “We found out that the bricks that made the walls of Aracia’s throne room are actually gold blocks and cousin Sorgan put Rabbit to work melting them down and making small blocks out of them. A big gold block is worth too much to waste on little things. Smaller gold blocks work better.” He squinted at Omago. “Do you think you could row a skiff across the harbor to the Ascension?” he asked. “I’d row you out there myself, but cousin Sorgan has me busy doing other things now.”

  “I can manage, Torl,” Omago said. “I thank you for the information. I could have spent a week or more looking for Rabbit here in this overdone temple. Give your cousin my regards.”

  “I’ll do that, Omago,” Torl replied.

  Omago went back outside the temple and located the Ascension out in the harbor. Then he willed himself from the beach to the ship’s deck, and he could clearly hear the sound of a hammer pounding on something made of iron near the ship’s bow.

  “Ah, there you are, Rabbit,” he said to the little smith. “Why are you working in the middle of the night like this?”

  “Cap’n’s orders,” Rabbit said sourly. “He doesn’t really trust all the sailors here on this oversized tub, and I’m working with gold, so the cap’n would rather that I didn’t do it out in the open in broad daylight.”

  “I heard a somewhat peculiar sound up here when I first came up on the deck of this boat. Does gold really ring like a bell when you tap it with your hammer?”

  “That was the mold,” Rabbit explained. “The gold the cap’n stole from Lady Aracia’s temple was mostly used for disguised bricks that had been used to make her throne room. I’ve been melting it down and pouring it into molds. After it hardens, I tap the back of the mold to make the gold blocks break loose.”

  “Ah, now I understand.” Omago glanced at the half-dozen or so gold blocks lying on Rabbit’s anvil. “Those aren’t really very big, are they?”

  “Four ounces each,” Rabbit said. “That was Torl’s idea. Those great big blocks Lady Zelana gave us are pretty enough, but they’re too big to use for money—unless you’re buying ships—or maybe a house in Kormo or Weros. Torl told the cap’n that we needed smaller blocks if we wanted to buy food. We don’t have coins over in the Land of Maag. We use plain gold blocks instead, and Torl was right when he said that bags and bags of these four-ounce blocks could be very useful.” Then he grinned at Omago. “The size and shape suggest something different, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I didn’t quite follow you there,” Omago admitted.

  “They don’t have any spots on them, but they’re exactly the same shape and same size as dice. Maags are very familiar with dice, but I’ve never heard of a dice-game played with gold dice. The cap’n came up with the idea all by himself. These gold dice will be the Maag version of money if the idea gets spread around.”

  “Clever,” Omago said. “Longbow sent me here to fetch you. He and Keselo need you.”

  “I don’t know if I can get away, Omago,” Rabbit said a bit dubiously. “The cap’n really wants me to convert a lot of the gold bricks our people are stealing out of Lady Aracia’s temple into these dice-shaped blocks. If I try to sneak off, he’ll have a lot of men out there trying to chase me down.”

  “I’ll see to it that they don’t catch you, Rabbit.”

  “Really? Just how do you plan to do that?”

  Omago was fairly certain that Rabbit wouldn’t believe him if he were to answer that question, so he went off in a different direction. “Sleep, Rabbit,” he said quite calmly. Then he caught the suddenly comatose little Maag and carried him several hundred feet up into the air above the temple harbor. “You look sort of tired anyway, Rabbit,” he murmured. Then he turned slightly and returned to Gunda’s fort at the head of Long-Pass.

  “That was quick!” Keselo declared, sounding more than a little astonished.

  “I cheated just a little,” Omago admitted. “I don’t know if you’ll believe this, but Sorgan Hook-Beak has filched a lot of gold from Aracia’s temple. Then he put Rabbit to work melting gold and pouring it into molds the size and shape of the dice some people use when they’re gambling. Rabbit told me that Sorgan planned to use those gold dice as money when he returns to the Land of Maag.”

  Keselo blinked. “Now that’s something that never would have occurred to me,” he said.

  “Sorgan’s very good at doing things that other people would never think of doing,” Longbow said. Then he looked rather closely at the sleeping little Maag. “He is all right, isn’t he, Omago?” he asked.

  “He’s just fine,” Omago replied, “and he’ll be well rested come morning.”

  “I don’t really think we should wait until daylight before we leave,” Keselo said. “Too many people are likely to start asking us questions if they see us going down that snowy slope after the sun comes up.”r />
  “That raises another question, Omago,” Longbow said. “If we start walking across the Wasteland in broad daylight, the bug-people are likely to be all over us.”

  “Only if they can see us, friend Longbow,” Omago replied. “And I can guarantee that they won’t see us.”

  “You’re going to make us invisible?” Keselo asked.

  “Not really invisible,” Omago replied. “‘Unnoticeable’ might describe it better. The bug-people will look at us, but they won’t see us.”

  “You can do that?” Keselo exclaimed.

  Omago shrugged. “Zelana does it all the time,” he said, “and if she can do it, so can I. Shall we go?”

  “Let’s see if I’ve got this straight,” Rabbit said after Omago had roused him from his sleep and Longbow had told him just exactly where they were going and what they were going to do when they got there. “Are you saying that just the four of us are going to hike out across the Wasteland, break into the palace of the Vlagh, and then persuade her children to run off and leave her there all by herself?”

  “Approximately, yes,” Omago replied. “It’s probably going to be quite a bit more complicated than what you just suggested, but that pretty much sums it up, yes.”

  “Have you people been drinking grog or something?” Rabbit demanded. “The bug-people have killed thousands and thousands of people-people, and you three seem to think that you can walk right through them with no problems at all.”

  Keselo stepped in at that point. “You’re going to have to adjust your thinking, Rabbit,” he told the little smith. “Omago might look like an ordinary farmer, but he has at least as much power as his mate, and we’ve all seen the sort of things Ara can do. The bug-people won’t be able to see us when we cross the Wasteland and enter the nest of the Vlagh. They won’t even know that we’re there, so we’ll be able to do anything we want to do.”

  “Butcher the Vlagh, maybe?” Rabbit asked in a voice dripping with skepticism.

  “You’re going to have to show him what you can do, Omago,” Longbow said. “Rabbit needs to see things before he’ll accept them.”

  “And just for the fun of it, you might want to show us that ‘unnoticeable’ trick that’s supposed to get us safely across the Wasteland,” Keselo added.

  Omago shrugged. “Whatever makes you gentlemen happy,” he said. He rose up through the chill winter air until he was standing about forty feet above his friends. “Does this answer any of your questions, Rabbit?” he asked the little Maag. “Now then, I want all of you to watch me very closely.” Then he reached out and touched their minds.

  “Where did he go?” Rabbit demanded.

  “I’m still here, Rabbit,” Omago called. “You just can’t see me anymore, that’s all.”

  “Are you saying that you’re invisible?”

  “No. You’re just not paying any attention to me is all. Here, watch this.” He brushed away their insensibility, and they all seemed to be startled by his sudden reappearance.

  “Are you sure that you can include us in this little game?” Keselo asked a bit dubiously.

  Omago laughed. “I can make a mountain range disappear if I really want to,” he replied. “It’ll still be there, but nobody will be able to see it. This isn’t really all that unusual, you know. Zelana does it all the time.”

  “Are you saying that you’re as powerful as Lady Zelana is?” Rabbit demanded.

  “More powerful, Rabbit,” Omago replied. “She’ll probably get better when she grows up, but she’s still got a long way to go. Does that answer all the questions you have? We have quite a long way to go, so we’d better get started.”

  3

  The chill wind sweeping across the rock-strewn Wasteland had a distinctly mournful sound to it that Omago found quite depressing. There were several reasons why they should hurry, but Omago knew in his heart that what was really pushing him was the sad song of the wind.

  After they’d gone down the slope to the west of Gunda’s fort, Omago fell back to what he’d always called the “skip-ship” method of crossing empty ground. He didn’t mention it to the others, and he was fairly sure that they weren’t even aware of the fact that he was cheating. When his skips reached about ten miles each, however, Longbow held up one hand. “I don’t think this is a very good idea, friend Omago,” he said.

  “What was that?”

  “These jumps of yours are covering too much ground. We could pop out right in the middle of a large group of bug-people, and they’re making just enough noise to catch the enemy’s attention. The jumps are all right, of course, but I’d hold them back to one mile apiece if I were you.”

  “Did I miss something?” Rabbit asked.

  “If you look at the mountains on the east side of the Wasteland, you’ll notice that they seem to be jumping fairly often. A mountain peak that was fairly close is suddenly a long ways away.” Longbow smiled at Omago. “I really think we should play it a little safer, don’t you?”

  “Do you catch everything, Longbow?” Omago demanded rather peevishly.

  “I’m supposed to, friend Omago. Part of my job involves keeping my friends out of danger. If we keep going at this pace we’ll arrive very suddenly at our destination. We don’t really want to reach the nest of the Vlagh before the sun goes down, and we don’t want to go inside until some of the servants of the Vlagh drift off to sleep, do we?”

  Omago sighed. “I guess not,” he reluctantly agreed.

  It was only a few days later when they reached a peculiar-looking rock peak that jutted up out of the barren desert called The Wasteland. “I think that’s it,” Omago quietly told his friends.

  “There do seem to be quite a lot of bugs scampering around outside that pile of rocks,” Rabbit agreed.

  “It looks almost like a fort, doesn’t it?” Keselo said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a peak that looks very much like that one, though. What could cause something like that?”

  “Erosion,” Omago told him. “At one time, what’s now called The Wasteland was the bottom of a fairly large sea, and water tends to eat rock. Give a sea a few million years, and it’ll turn just about every rock along its shore into sand.”

  “If I understand what you’re saying about this peak,” Rabbit said, “it’s the ‘nest’ the bug-people all live inside.”

  “Not quite all of them, Rabbit,” Longbow said. “Quite a few of them have been out in the open killing people. That’s why we call this a ‘war,’ isn’t it?”

  “Very funny, Longbow,” Rabbit said. “What I was getting at is that bugs don’t build fires—or didn’t until the war up in the North. If they don’t build fires, what do they use to give them light inside that mountain?”

  “Many bugs don’t need light, Rabbit,” Keselo said. “They find their way around in dark places with touch, not sight. Then too, there are certain bugs that generate light from inside their bodies. Some people call those particular bugs ‘fireflies,’ but there isn’t any fire involved, and I’ve heard that those bugs are beetles, not flies.”

  “We’ll know more once we get inside,” Longbow said in a bleak voice. “One thing, though. I want you all to know that the Vlagh is mine. I’m the one who’s going to kill her.”

  That took Omago by complete surprise, and it disturbed him more than a little. He had come up with something entirely different, but it was now fairly obvious that he and Longbow needed to talk about this—soon.

  “That cave-mouth at the center of the peak is almost certainly the main entrance to the nest,” Keselo told them quietly as dusk began to settle over the Wasteland.

  “There are a lot of bugs going in and out of that cave,” Rabbit noted. “Even if they can’t see us, we’ll probably be bumping into a lot of them inside the cave.”

  “I can deal with that,” Omago assured the little smith. Then he looked around. “What is that buzzing sound?” he demanded rather irritably.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Rabbit said.

  Omago g
lanced at Longbow and then at Keselo. “Can either of you hear it?” he asked.

  They both shook their heads.

  “Is it possible that you’re listening to the Vlagh herself?” Keselo asked. “I’ve heard about what’s called ‘the overmind.’ Maybe the Vlagh’s giving orders to her children, and you’re eavesdropping. You do have capabilities that we don’t.”

  “It is a possibility, Omago,” Longbow agreed. “Is there some way that you might be able to understand what the Vlagh’s overmind is saying to her children? If we knew what she wants them to do, we’d have a tremendous advantage.”

  Omago frowned. “That hadn’t occurred to me,” he admitted. “I think what she’s telling them will be more clear once we’re inside the cave.”

  “This might just turn into a very easy war,” Rabbit said. “If you can listen in while the bug-queen is giving orders to her children, we should be able to stop them before they even get started.”

  “Let’s go on inside,” Omago told his friends. “If I can still hear the buzzing when we’re in the cave, we should look into it.”

  The walls of what had appeared from the outside to be nothing more than a natural opening in the side of the mountain were as smooth as the walls of Veltan’s house off to the south. Polished walls—particularly in a mountain cave—seemed to Omago to be more than a little absurd, but they’d obviously given the children of the Vlagh something to do when they weren’t busy invading people country.

  There were many bug-people moving in or out of the cave, and even though they most certainly couldn’t see Omago and his friends, they almost politely stepped out of their way. As Omago moved farther and farther into the cave, the irritating buzz became louder and more distinct. He probed at that sound with his mind, and after a few false starts, his mind captured the meaning of what the Vlagh was telling her children. “Care for the little ones” came through quite clearly. “Take them to a place where it is not cold, and feed them much, for they will soon grow larger and will take on their tasks. Fail me not if you would go on living, for the little ones are most precious to me.”