The Younger Gods

by David Eddings

  Omago was staring at the cocoon, and then he suddenly laughed. “I think that does it,” he murmured. Then he frowned again, and what appeared to be almost all of the bug-people in the vast chamber suddenly rushed toward the narrow tunnel that led back to the outside.

  “Why didn’t you just send them all away?” Rabbit wanted to know.

  “I need the few that are left, Rabbit. They’re going to do something that’s probably going to make the Vlagh start screaming, and she’ll probably keep it up for a long, long time.”

  Since Rabbit and the others were still invisible to the remaining bugs, they crossed the now nearly empty chamber to get closer to the cocoon.

  It was then that the cocoon split with a ripping sound as a very familiar figure came crawling through the web.

  Rabbit flinched back. “I thought she was dead!” he exclaimed.

  “That’s not quite accurate, little friend,” Omago said. “What we’re looking at is not a reborn Aracia. I’d say that Alcevan told the Vlagh that Aracia had been the queen of the East, and the Vlagh evidently decided to alter her form until she resembled Zelana’s elder sister. It is quite a bit more attractive than the Vlagh’s real form could ever be, and the Vlagh has always adored adoration. In some ways, the Vlagh and Aracia are very much like sisters. Even bugs have a certain sense of vanity. Then too, the Vlagh might have a certain amount of deception in what passes for her mind.”

  The Vlagh, disguised as Lady Aracia, made a peculiar buzzing sound as countless many-legged worms scrambled across the nearly empty floor of the nest. They rushed to where the bugs called “care-givers” were waiting, and they all began to make a sort of squeaky sound.

  “I don’t speak bug,” Rabbit told Keselo, “but I’d guess that the puppies are all saying, ‘feed me, feed me, feed me.’”

  “That probably comes fairly close, yes,” Keselo agreed. “Now that Omago has chased out most of the puppy-feeders, the baby bugs might have to wait in line for quite a long time.”

  “Do you think they’d know how to stand in line?”

  “Probably not,” Keselo replied. “I’d say that we’re about to see a very interesting fight any minute now.”

  It wasn’t exactly a fight they saw, however. The full-grown bugs looked at the tiny worms with legs for a moment or two, and then they began to eat them, snatching them up with their front claws and biting off their heads.

  The Vlagh began to scream, but the “care-givers” paid no attention and continued their feast.

  “I think the Malavi call that ‘thinning out the herd,’ don’t they?” Rabbit said.

  “I believe I’ve heard them use that term, yes,” Keselo agreed.

  “Big Mommy doesn’t seem to like it very much,” Rabbit added.

  “I think you might have spent too much time in the vicinity of Eleria,” Keselo suggested. Then he looked at Longbow and Omago. “I’d say that our friend Longbow might be having a bit of a problem right now,” he said. “He’d really like to shoot a dozen or so arrows into Big Mommy, but her screams are probably the most beautiful music he’s ever heard.”

  “It is a pleasant sort of sound, isn’t it?” Rabbit agreed. Then he looked around at the vast chamber. “What do you think, Keselo? Should we stay here and listen to Big Mommy sing, or should we snoop around in the other parts of the nest and find out how all the other buggies are reacting to this disaster?”

  “That might not be a bad idea,” Keselo agreed. “I’m fairly sure that the other bug-people are filled with confusion, but maybe we should go look and make sure.”

  2

  If it’s all right with you, Omago,” Rabbit said to their friend, “Keselo and I talked it over, and it seems to us that taking a quick look at the other parts of this fort—or whatever it is—might be a good idea. If the bugs are all coming apart, fine and dandy, but if they look like they’re about to go charging out to kill all the people-people in the vicinity, we ought to know about it.”

  “That’s a very good idea, Rabbit,” Omago said. “We’ve all spent so much time concentrating on the Vlagh that we haven’t really paid much attention to her children. Now that her mind isn’t functioning anymore, her children might try to do almost anything, and we’d better know about it.”

  “They don’t really live very long, do they?” Rabbit asked.

  “No. Four to six weeks is about all. Now and then you might come across one that’s seven or eight weeks old, but I don’t think we’ll ever see one that’s older than that.”

  “I think we’re going to need a torch,” Keselo said. “There are probably bugs out there that can see in the dark, but my eyes aren’t quite that good.”

  Omago reached into the canvas bag hanging from his belt and took out a pale, round object that appeared to be glass. “Use this,” he said, handing the glass ball to Keselo. “When you need some light, squeeze it, and it’ll give you all the light you need. When you want darkness, loosen your grip.”

  Keselo examined the round ball rather closely. “I don’t really see anything in this that could produce light,” he said.

  “It isn’t in there,” Omago said with a faint smile. “It’s in here.” And he tapped his forehead.

  “Oh,” Keselo said. “I probably should have realized that.”

  “That’s our Keselo for you,” Rabbit said. “He seems to need to know how everything works. Don’t let him get too close to the moon, Omago. He’ll probably take her apart to find out what keeps her up in the night sky.”

  “Curiosity isn’t a bad thing, Rabbit,” Omago replied.

  “I was only teasing,” Rabbit said. “It’s all right to tease your friends, isn’t it? Come along, Keselo,” he said then. “Let’s go out and see if we can find any of Big Mommy’s puppies.”

  “Big Mommy?” Omago asked, sounding a bit perplexed.

  “It’s sort of what’s called an ‘in-house joke,’ Omago,” Rabbit said. “I’d explain it, but it’d take much too long. Shall we go, Keselo?”

  “We might as well,” Keselo agreed.

  The far wall of the vast main chamber was at least a mile from the place where the “care-givers” were eating the Vlagh’s babies, but the Vlagh’s screams were still quite audible. “She’s got a big mouth, hasn’t she?” Rabbit said to his friend.

  “Oh, yes,” Keselo agreed. “I wouldn’t want to try to sleep anywhere within ten miles of this place.” Then he pointed at a part of the back wall about fifty yards off to the left. “It looks to me like there’s a sizeable hole in the wall over there. It might lead to another part of the nest.”

  “Squeeze that light ball,” Rabbit suggested. “Let’s make sure that it works before we go crawling into any dark places.”

  “Omago wouldn’t lie to us, Rabbit.”

  “I’m not saying that he would. The light ball probably works just fine when he squeezes it, but let’s make sure that it’ll work for you as well. Always test equipment before you need to use it.”

  “If it makes you happy,” said Keselo, squeezing Omago’s toy.

  When the glass ball began to glow, Rabbit nodded. Then he looked around at the vast chamber that was still echoing to the screams of the Vlagh. “This might take us quite a while, Keselo,” he suggested. “If this mountain—or whatever we want to call it—is jam-packed full of bug-people, there could be hundreds of chambers where they hole up when they’re not out in the open eating people-people.”

  “We’ll never know for sure until we take a look,” Keselo said. “The more we see, the more we’ll know.”

  The hole in the rear wall that Keselo had seen was not exactly what Rabbit would have called a doorway, but there were many signs that it was used fairly often by the assorted children of the Vlagh. When Rabbit and Keselo crawled through the hole, they came out in what appeared to be a shaft that reached far, far up in this imitation mountain.

  “I think we’re in trouble,” Rabbit said.

  “Oh?”

  “We didn’t think to bring
a ladder.”

  Keselo squinted up. “The walls of this shaft aren’t really very smooth,” he noted. “It looks to me like there are plenty of handholds on the sides of the shaft.”

  “Bugs have hands now?” Rabbit said, pretending that he was astonished.

  “Funny, funny, Bunny,” Keselo replied sarcastically.

  “Bunny?” Rabbit protested.

  “I filched that one from Eleria,” Keselo replied with a faint smile. “Let’s see if we can make our way up this shaft. If it gets too risky, we’ll go back and see if Omago can create a ladder for us.”

  They climbed slowly up the wall of the shaft, and Rabbit noticed that there were many, many small round holes in the solid rock. Evidently generations of bugs had been climbing up and down the shaft for hundreds of years. “It looks to me like there are quite a few openings in the walls of this up and down corridor,” he said.

  “Separate quarters, most likely,” Keselo suggested. “I’d say that the various kinds of bug-people avoid each other when they possibly can.”

  “Just ahead,” Rabbit whispered. “I just saw a bug poke its head out of that hole in the wall just ahead of us.”

  “Do you think it might have seen us?”

  “Probably not. It seemed to be looking up the shaft instead of down. To get down to the bald truth, Keselo, I’m not really thrilled by the notion of crawling into a hole in the wall that might just be filled to the brim with hungry bugs.”

  “I’m with you all the way on that one, Rabbit,” Keselo replied. Then he leaned back slightly and peered up the gloomy shaft. “There’s a much larger opening about fifteen feet above the little one just ahead of us. That one might be a safer one to investigate.”

  “I do like the word ‘safe,’ my friend,” Rabbit agreed.

  They carefully climbed up the rugged shaft wall until they reached the larger opening. Rabbit quickly poked his head around the edge of the opening and then jerked it back. “No bugs,” he whispered. “Are we still invisible?”

  “I think the word Omago used was ‘unnoticeable,’” Keselo replied. “I’d say that it’s still in place. If any one of the bugs had actually seen us, she’d be making a lot of noise by now.”

  “I’m never going to get used to the idea that all our enemies are women.”

  “I wouldn’t think of them as ‘women,’ Rabbit,” Keselo said. “Female is one thing, but ‘women’ is something entirely different.”

  The larger opening appeared to be the mouth of a cave of some sort, and, much like the cave that had led to the vast chamber down below, this cave also led to a much, much larger room. When the two of them reached that chamber, they stopped. There were thousands of bugs there, but they were not all of the same variety, and the different kinds of bugs were staying away from each other, for some reason. Each group was all clustered together in the same place, and it seemed to Rabbit that there was a growing antagonism in the clusters of some varieties of bugs. Some of the groups seemed to be speaking inaudible sounds and others were reaching out with their front legs to touch the front legs of others. “I don’t imagine that you learned bug-language when you were going to school,” he whispered to his friend.

  “We don’t have the right kind of equipment to talk bug, Rabbit,” Keselo replied. “Most of the time, bugs communicate by touching each other. If their language involves sound, like ours does, they make the sound by rubbing their legs against each other. Bug language would have to be quite simple, I think. They aren’t really overloaded with brains, after all. I’m just guessing here, but I’d say that ‘kill, kill, kill,’ is about as far as the language of bugs would go.”

  Something suddenly occurred to Rabbit. “Are you up for an experiment of sorts, friend Keselo?” he asked.

  “That might depend on just what kind of experiment we’re talking about.”

  “Omago can do all sorts of peculiar things, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I think I’d take it quite a bit farther than ‘peculiar.’ What did you have in mind?”

  “Why don’t you hold out that light ball Omago gave you and squeeze it?”

  “Do you want to announce that we’re here to about a half-million unfriendly bugs? Are you out of your mind?”

  “I don’t think they’ll see it, Keselo. Omago wouldn’t give us something that’d put us in any danger, would he? I’m sure that we’ll see the light coming from that glass ball, but I’m just as sure that the bugs won’t.”

  “A light that only we can see?”

  “Something like that would be sort of Omago-ish, wouldn’t you say?”

  Keselo frowned. “That was a rotten thing to do, Rabbit,” he complained. “It is a definite possibility, and it’s raised my curiosity so much that I almost have to try it.”

  “You worry too much, Keselo,” Rabbit said. “If it works the way I think it will, we’ll have a tremendous advantage.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?”

  Rabbit shrugged. “We’ve got a clear path back to that shaft. We can escape if we really have to. Try it. Think of the advantage. We’ll have light, but the bugs will still be in the dark.”

  Keselo took the glass ball out from under his shirt. “Just don’t get in my way if we have to make a run for it, Rabbit.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing, friend Keselo,” Rabbit said. “I can run at least twice as fast as you can, so I won’t get in your way at all.”

  “I’ve got to find out if your absurd idea will actually work, Rabbit,” Keselo complained. “It shouldn’t work that way, but I’ll fly apart if I don’t try it and find out.” He raised the glass ball up over his head, and the growing light coming from Omago’s toy grew brighter and brighter as Keselo’s hand squeezed it.

  “You can let it go now, Light-Bearer Keselo,” Rabbit told his friend. “The light’s as bright as the noon sun, but the bugs out there don’t seem to be able to see it.”

  “Oh, the poor babies,” Keselo said. He began to squeeze and release in rapid succession, and the light went on and off as Keselo’s hand told it to.

  “Show-off,” Rabbit scolded. And then he laughed.

  They came across several familiar bug-people as they went farther back into the huge chamber. There were a lot of the snake-bugs that had made things so unpleasant in the ravine above the village of Lattash in one area, and Rabbit was a bit surprised to see several of the glowing fire-bugs mixed in with the snake-bugs. “It looks to me like the fire bugs are almost welcome in the vicinity of nearly every other kind of bug,” he said to Keselo.

  “You’re probably right,” Keselo agreed. “Light can be very useful. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the other bugs even feed the ones that glow in the dark.”

  “The bug-people pay for light, you mean?”

  “It’s not out of the question, friend Rabbit.” Then Keselo stopped and pointed at the ceiling. “Bug-bats,” he said.

  “It’s almost like old times, isn’t it?” Rabbit said. “Let’s not get them excited. I didn’t bring any fish-nets along this time.”

  As they moved farther back into the chamber, they encountered several more of the familiar varieties of bug-people, and quite a few others they’d never seen before. “What would you say that shaggy one whose hands drag on the floor might be?” Rabbit asked.

  “Some sort of ape,” Keselo replied.

  “I don’t think we ever came across any of those, did we?”

  “Not that I recall, we didn’t. It’s probably a variety that didn’t turn out very well. The Vlagh experimented all the time, I’d say, and she probably turned out more useless creatures than good ones.”

  “Junk-bugs?” Rabbit suggested.

  “That’s probably as good a term as any,” Keselo agreed.

  Then a kind of roaring sound came from farther back in the chamber. “If that’s what I think it is, we’re very lucky that we didn’t encounter any of them in these various wars. It sounded very much like a lion to me.”

  “What’s a lion
?”

  “A very, very large cat. I’ve heard that a full-grown lion weighs about five hundred pounds, and it’s got long, sharp teeth and deadly claws. It’s a tropical animal, though, so it probably wouldn’t have been of much use in the Land of Dhrall—except possibly down in Veltan’s Domain.”

  The roaring continued, but there was also another sound echoing from the walls up ahead.

  “It sounds to me like there’s a fair amount of ‘unfriendly’ on up ahead,” Rabbit noted.

  “That’s not at all unlikely,” Keselo agreed. “As long as ‘Big Mommy’ was running things, her children probably tolerated each other, but Omago broke her grip on her puppies, and now her children are all trying their very best to kill each other.”

  “Something to eat might be involved as well,” Rabbit added. “This isn’t called ‘the Wasteland’ just for fun. There’s nothing to eat here except rocks—and the neighbors, of course.”

  “Good point,” Keselo agreed. “Let’s have a look and see just how savage all of this really is. The nest might be empty much sooner than we all thought it would be.”

  “What a shame,” Rabbit replied with mock regret. And then he laughed.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a six-legged cat before,” Rabbit said as the two friends moved along the chamber wall toward the violent encounter between several varieties of bug-people.

  “The Vlagh probably blundered on that one,” Keselo replied. “She’s never fully understood why many creatures don’t need that many legs, so it seems that six legs show in these imitations quite often.”

  “She must have paid more attention when she conjured up that one called Alcevan, then,” Rabbit said. “She looked like a real woman—a little small, maybe, but she had everything else that a woman’s supposed to have.”

  “I’d say that Alcevan was the best one the Vlagh ever produced. In many ways Alcevan is even better than the Vlagh herself, and when you add that odor, the little imitation priestess came very close to winning the war in temple-town.”