Rabbit had gone on ahead, and his expression when he rejoined them was a bit awed.
“What’s wrong?” Longbow asked his little friend.
“You’re not going to believe just how big the chamber at the end of this tunnel is, Longbow,” Rabbit said. “I couldn’t even see the far wall.”
“Is there light there?” Keselo asked.
“If you want to call it that,” Rabbit replied. “There are quite a few of those fire-bugs mixed in with the ordinary ones. They don’t really put out very much light, but it’s not pitch-black in there.”
“Did you see the Vlagh herself?” Longbow asked.
Rabbit shook his head. “The bug-people are all looking at something that looks a lot like a large clump of spiderwebs that’s hanging down from the ceiling.”
“That would be a cocoon,” Keselo said. “Certain bugs wrap themselves in webbing when they’re changing their form—or when they’re giving birth to a new generation of puppies—or whatever you call baby-bugs.”
Longbow’s face went cold and bleak. “That would most likely be the Vlagh herself, wouldn’t it?” he asked Omago.
“Definitely,” Omago agreed. Then he decided that it was time to clear something up. “Don’t start reaching for your bow or your arrows, friend Longbow. I have other plans for the Vlagh.”
“Oh?”
“Once you hear what I have in mind, I’m sure that you’ll approve.”
“Surprise me,” Longbow said.
Omago shrugged. “The Vlagh will live forever, and I’ll see to it that she’ll suffer every moment of that eternal time.”
“I’ll listen,” Longbow promised.
The “Care for the little ones” buzz was repeated over and over, even though the cocoon was still intact, and Omago was quite sure that “the keepers” knew what they were supposed to do. It took him a while to blot out the buzz-sound, and once it was no longer audible, he reached out and began to duplicate that sound with a completely different message. “You are the best of all who serve me,” he buzzed to the care-givers. “Let others attend to this new hatch, for you have much more important duties. Go forth from our eternal nest and prepare to defend it from the man-things who even now approach across the land that produces no food. The fate of this nest depends entirely upon you.”
“How did you do that?” Rabbit whispered to Omago as virtually all of the bug-people rushed into the passageway that led to the outside of the peak.
“I think the most significant term would be ‘cheating,’ my little friend. I duplicated that buzzing noise and ordered nearly every bug in this vast chamber to run outside and hold back an imaginary invasion.”
“Aren’t they supposed to take care of the puppies?” Rabbit demanded.
“They were, yes. But the ‘overmind’ just gave them new orders.” Omago looked around the vast chamber that had been filled with bug-people until he’d issued his counterfeit command. “There aren’t very many of the Vlagh’s servants left in here, are there?” he observed.
And then he broke out laughing.
THE
VISIT
OF
SORGAN
HOOK-BEAK
1
Commander Narasan of Kaldacin was more than a little disturbed by the sudden disappearance of the enemy army. Not even the recent blizzard had driven the bug-people back, and they’d continued their mindless charges up the slope toward Gunda’s fort despite the steady rain of arrows and fire missiles and the savage attacks by Prince Ekial’s horse-soldiers. But now, for no reason Narasan could determine, the bug-people had ceased their attacks, and for all anybody in Gunda’s fort could tell, they’d abandoned the slope and gone back out into the barren Wasteland.
To make things even worse for Narasan, Queen Trenicia of the Isle of Akalla was nowhere to be found in the fort, and her absence troubled Narasan more than he’d care to admit, even to himself. Trenicia was boisterous, sometimes arrogant, and prone to take terrible chances when they weren’t necessary, but Narasan felt a dreadful isolation when she wasn’t around. She’d irritated him many times during the war in Lord Dahlaine’s domain in the north of the Land of Dhrall, and it was fairly obvious that she intended to continue that here in Long-Pass. “If she’d just tell me where she was going,” he muttered to himself as he stood on the high front wall of Gunda’s fort looking down the snow-covered slope toward the Wasteland. “I’m not going to order her around, but I need to know where she is.”
“Ah, there you are,” Narasan’s friend, Sub-Commander Padan, said, joining Narasan on top of the wall. “Are there any signs at all of the bug-people on that slope?”
“Nothing at all,” Narasan replied. “I suppose it’s possible that they’ve gone back to burrowing.”
“That would take them years, Narasan,” Padan scoffed. “I came up here to advise you that we’ve got company coming up Long-Pass.”
“Who’s that?”
“Our dear old friend, Sorgan Hook-Beak. A runner just came up the pass to warn you that he’s on his way up here to scold you about something. The runner told me that Sorgan’s very discontented about something.”
“Now what?” Narasan grumbled.
“I haven’t got a clue, glorious leader,” Padan replied.
“Do you always have to do that, Padan?” Narasan complained.
“Every now and then, yes. Shall we go down and greet him and see what he has to say? Or would you rather find someplace to hide?”
Narasan’s friend, the burly Sorgan Hook-Beak, reached the rear gate of Gunda’s fort about a half hour later, and he had his shaggy Matan bison-robe pulled tightly around him. “Is there some kind of emergency up here, friend Narasan?” he demanded.
“Our enemies aren’t charging up the slope to the west of Gunda’s fort,” Narasan replied. “I wouldn’t call that an emergency, though. Let’s get in out of the cold, and then you can tell me about your problem.”
“It is a bit crisp up here,” Sorgan agreed. “Lead the way, my friend. I’ll be happy to follow.”
At Padan’s suggestion they went through a long corridor that led to the kitchen of Ara, the mate of the farmer Omago. It was the warmest place in the whole fort, and Sorgan, after his long hike up the pass, was probably hungry.
“We don’t want to intrude, Ara,” Narasan said, “but Captain Hook-Beak here has been out in the cold for several days, and I’d imagine that something to eat might make his belly very happy.”
“It doesn’t disturb me at all, Narasan,” the beautiful Ara said. “Warm him up a bit, and I’ll give him a lunch.”
“That won’t hurt my feelings one little bit, ma’am,” Sorgan said, pulling off his bison-hide cloak. “Your mate has probably been away for several days now,” he added. “That’s why I came up here to talk with friend Narasan here.” Then he looked at Narasan. “That’s why I asked you if there was some kind of emergency up here. Omago came down to temple-town looking for Rabbit. I guess they talked for a little while, and now we can’t locate either one of them. It’s almost like they just disappeared.”
“Was Rabbit doing anything important?”
“Very, very important, Narasan. We found tons and tons of gold in Lady Aracia’s temple, and Rabbit’s been modifying gold bricks for us, but now he’s gone. I’ve got several other men working on the modification, but they’re not nearly as good as Rabbit.”
“Just where did you find this gold, friend Sorgan?”
“You’re not going to believe this, but the walls of Lady Aracia’s throne room were made of solid gold blocks.”
“When did that happen?” Narasan demanded. “When I was down there, her throne room was made of ordinary bricks.”
“They might have looked ordinary,” Sorgan replied, “but somebody down there was clever enough to disguise them.”
“How did they do that?”
“As close as we were able to determine, they sprinkled sand on the molten gold while it was still cooling in the molds. Th
e sand stuck to the gold and made it look like clay bricks. I’d say that one of those lazy priests was clever enough to disguise the gold—to keep us from finding out that it was there.” He looked around. “Have you got anything to drink around here?” he asked.
“I’ll go fetch a jug or two, Captain,” Padan said, walking toward the door.
“How can people live in a place where it gets this cold?” Sorgan asked Narasan.
“Those bison-hide cloaks help quite a bit,” Narasan replied.
“I’d hate to spend much time outside if I didn’t have one, that’s for sure,” Sorgan agreed. “Oh, before I forget, I’m going to need several more of your ships down there in the harbor before long. The Ascension is a nice enough ship, I guess, but she can’t carry all that gold by herself.”
“How much are we talking about here, Sorgan?”
“What’s the next word up from ‘tons,’ Narasan? We’re a long way above ‘tons’ already, and there’s still more that we haven’t pulled out of the temple yet.”
“I’d like to see some of it, Sorgan. I’m not calling you a liar or anything, but still—”
“I thought you’d never ask, Narasan,” Sorgan said. Then he untied a leather pouch from his belt, opened it, and poured several fairly small gold blocks out onto the table just as Padan returned with two fairly large jugs.
“Pretty,” Padan said, looking at the gold scattered across the table, “but why are you making such small chips?”
“I’m stealing another idea from you Trogites,” Sorgan admitted. “We don’t have gold coins over in the Land of Maag. We’ve got copper coins, brass ones, and a few made of silver, but for some reason, nobody there has ever considered gold coins.”
“Square ones?” Narasan asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen square coins.”
“It was Rabbit’s idea. He said that if we put out square coins, everybody would know that they came from the Land of Maag.”
“Shouldn’t you stamp a picture of somebody on those blocks?” Padan asked.
“A picture? Of who?”
“You, probably. You’re the one who came up with the idea, after all, and if your picture is stamped into every one of them, the other Maags will think of you as their emperor.”
“That never occurred to me,” Sorgan admitted. “How do people go about doing that?”
“Etch the picture on the end of an iron rod, set the rod on the face of one of your gold blocks, and then rap the blank end with a hammer.”
“How did you plan to distribute your new coins, friend Sorgan?” Narasan asked.
Sorgan shrugged. “I’ll buy things—ships, houses, land. When you get right down to it, I probably will be the emperor of Maag, since I’ll own everything there, and I’ll be able to hire an army to make everybody there bow down to me. And friend Narasan here will be able to buy the Trogite Empire too, since half of the gold will be his.”
“How did you come up with that idea, Sorgan?” Narasan asked, more than a little surprised.
“We’re partners, friend Narasan, and I never cheat a partner. You should know that by now.”
“I seem to be about neck-deep in emperors,” Padan said. Then he pulled the cork out of one of the jugs he’d just carried into the room. “Let’s drink to that, shall we?” he suggested.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Sorgan declared with a broad grin.
Ara had been checking her assorted ovens, and then, with a sort of reluctant expression on her beautiful face, she joined Narasan and Sorgan at the large table where they’d been talking with each other for the better part of an hour. “I think there’s something you gentlemen should know,” she said.
“It’s almost supper-time?” Sorgan asked her with a grin on his face.
“Very funny, Hook-Beak,” she replied. “I don’t want to ruin your day, mighty soldiers, but my mate has decided to put an end to this war right about now.”
“So that’s why he came down to temple-town and filched Rabbit,” Sorgan said.
“I think you just lost me, friend Sorgan,” Narasan said.
“The farmer’s clever enough to realize that Longbow, Rabbit, and your man Keselo have made an excellent team during the previous wars. I’m fairly sure that if we looked around we wouldn’t find any of them here in Gunda’s fort.” He looked at Ara then. “As I understood what people have been saying correctly, you and your mate can stay in touch with each other even if you’re a thousand miles apart. That suggests that you know exactly what he and his friends are up to.”
“Oh, yes, and a thousand miles only begins to describe how far we can reach when we need to. Up until quite recently, he wasn’t fully aware of that. Then he had a Dream that went much farther than the Dreams of the children.”
“A Dream about what’s going to happen out in the Wasteland?” Narasan asked.
“No. That’s sort of beside the point, though. Omago’s Dream told him just who—and what—he really is. Now he knows that he can eliminate the Vlagh and all of her puppies. He picked up that team that’s been so useful in the past, and they went across the Wasteland to the nest of the Vlagh.”
“Isn’t that sort of dangerous?” Narasan asked. “As far as we can tell, the Wasteland’s crawling with the children of the Vlagh.”
“Not anymore,” Ara replied, “and even if they were out there by the thousands, they wouldn’t be able to see our friends.”
“When would you say that they’ll reach the nest of the Vlagh?” Narasan asked.
“Actually, distance doesn’t mean anything to Omago, and neither does time. They’re there already.”
“What’s at the core of his scheme?” Sorgan asked.
“He’s blotted out the sound of her voice. She’ll try to give her children orders, but they won’t be able to hear her. Omago has usurped her voice, so now her children are obeying him instead of her. The Vlagh just recently laid a million or so eggs. When the eggs hatched, Vlagh’s children went to the ‘care-givers,’ who are supposed to care for each new hatch. Since Omago had blotted out the Vlagh’s orders to the ‘care-givers,’ they didn’t recognize the baby bugs, so they ate them.”
Sorgan suddenly gagged. “They’re eating their own children?” he exclaimed.
“They don’t know that the new hatch comes from the Vlagh herself,” Ara replied. “To them, the new hatch is nothing but small caterpillars. Omago advised me that the Vlagh started screaming when the ‘care-givers’ ate every single puppy she had created. Omago’s certain that she’ll scream for a long, long time.”
“How long?” Narasan demanded.
“Omago used the word ‘forever’ when he explained it to Longbow. You might not want to accept this, but Longbow put his arrows away after Omago told him ‘forever.’ He had obviously planned to kill the Vlagh, but when my mate told him that the Vlagh would scream out her grief for millions of years, that would be much, much more satisfactory than shooting her full of arrows could ever be.”
“If there aren’t going to be any more hatches, the bug-people will probably die out before long, won’t they?” Sorgan asked.
“Define ‘before long,’ Hook-Beak,” Ara replied.
“I don’t know,” Sorgan admitted. “A year or so at the most, I’d say.”
“No bug has ever lived that long,” Ara said. “Four to six weeks is about as far as they can go. The Vlagh will still be there, but she’ll be alone—and screaming—for the next million years—or so.”
“If that’s what’s happening, you and your men don’t need to stay here, friend Narasan,” Sorgan said. “Your men would be much more useful down there in temple-town guarding all that gold.”
“What’s been going on down there since Lady Aracia vanished?” Narasan asked his friend.
“I think it’s called ‘mutual extinction,’” Sorgan replied with a wicked grin. “The priests have been killing each other every chance they get. That little priestess Alcevan gutted poor old Fat Bersla right in the throne room. Bersla
had usurped Lady Aracia’s throne, and little Alcevan came up to him and knelt down as if she wanted his blessing. I guess he was thinking it over, but then Alcevan jumped forward with a knife and gutted him right then and there. I didn’t see it myself, but I’ve heard that his innards spilled out all over the floor of the throne room. It’s a messy way to kill somebody, but it does work—eventually.”
“I’ve heard quite a bit about that Alcevan,” Ara said. “I think I’ll make a suggestion to my mate. It might not be a bad idea to send her back home to the nest. Then she’ll be able to sit somewhere and listen to her mother scream out her grief for the next million or so years.”
“She couldn’t possibly live that long,” Narasan protested.
“Throw ‘possibly’ away, dear Narasan,” Ara replied. “If I want Alcevan to be in the nest listening to her mother’s screams for the next million or so years, she will, I can guarantee that. Killing is one way to get revenge, but not killing is sometimes more satisfactory.”
It was about mid-morning the following day when the warrior queen Trenicia came up the slope that led down to the Wasteland, and she was accompanied by Prince Ekial.
“Where have you been?” Narasan demanded when Trenicia entered Gunda’s fort.
“My,” she said, “aren’t we grouchy this morning?”
“I’ve asked you several times to let me know before you go scouting around.”
“You didn’t really think I paid any attention, did you? You needed some information, so I went out and gathered it for you. That slope appears to be deserted, but it’s not. There are thousands of bug-people down there, but they’re all dead.”
“Who—or what—killed them?” Narasan asked, more than a little startled.
“I’d say that it was the weather,” she replied. “Isn’t that the way you saw it, Prince Ekial?”
“She’s right about that, friend Narasan,” Ekial replied. “The peculiar thing is that every one of them we saw was still standing up.”
The Younger Gods Page 27