The Younger Gods

by David Eddings

  “You might say that she even won a war for us when she gutted out Takal Bersla. Torl was watching when that happened, and Torl’s seen a lot of nasty things happen to people, but he told Cap’n Sorgan that he almost threw up when Alcevan spilled poor Bersla’s insides all over the temple floor.”

  “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow,” Keselo agreed. “We might want to stay back just a bit, Rabbit,” he said then. “I see several varieties of bugs approaching those lion-bugs, and I suspect that open war is just about to break out.”

  “You’re right there, friend Keselo,” Rabbit agreed. “I see a dozen or so very large spiders on the other side of this chamber, as well as the lion-bug, some beetles that look like they’re wearing armor, and some wasp-bugs flying around with their stingers held at the ready. Do all bugs have those great big eyes?”

  “They want—and need—to see everything, Rabbit.” Then Keselo gasped. “What is that thing?” he exclaimed.

  Rabbit stared at the creature Keselo had just pointed out. “She actually tried to imitate Longbow!” he exclaimed.

  “It looks that way to me too,” Keselo agreed, “but it has six limbs instead of only four, and it’s carrying two bows instead of only one.”

  “Now this I want to see,” Rabbit declared. “If that thing shoots two arrows at the same time, it can kill more of its enemies than any other bug thing could ever manage.”

  Keselo and Rabbit watched closely, and sure enough, the archer bug was killing two lion-bugs—or beetle-bugs—at the same time. The dead bugs with arrows in them began to pile up.

  “She’s good,” Rabbit reluctantly admitted. “Longbow never misses, but he only uses one bow.”

  “Look out!” Keselo exclaimed as a heavy crashing sound came from overhead.

  Rabbit and Keselo pulled back from the large chamber as the overhead ceiling began to shatter. They could see a new kind of bug above them, and they had big rocks in their claws.

  “They’re huge!” Keselo exclaimed. “They have to be at least ten feet tall, and they’re slamming boulders down on the top of the ceiling. The whole thing will collapse any time now.”

  Then a flock of the bug-bats came flapping in overhead, and they began attacking the lion-bugs and the bug-archers.

  “That’s it!” Rabbit declared. “Let’s get out of here, Keselo. It’s time to go on back and tell Omago what’s going on in this part of the nest. Give them a couple of days, and there won’t be any bugs left alive anywhere in this nest.”

  “What a shame,” Keselo murmured, and then the two of them ran back toward the central shaft, and they didn’t even laugh very much.

  3

  When the two explorers returned to the main cavern, the Aracia creature was still screaming, but no other bugs were around anymore.

  “I wasn’t sure just what ‘Vlagh’ was supposed to mean back in the old days,” Rabbit said. “That’s why we called her Big Mommy. But I do know what it means now.”

  “Oh?” Keselo stepped in. “What’s that?”

  “I’d say that ‘all alone’ comes pretty close, wouldn’t you?”

  “Not quite, friend Rabbit,” Longbow said. “If you listen carefully, you’ll hear some other screams coming from a different part of the nest. The pretty lady delivered another screamer while you two were roaming around in the nest. The one called Alcevan is back home now, and she’ll be able to listen to Big Mommy’s screams for a long, long time.”

  “Except that she won’t live for a long time, will she?” Keselo asked.

  “Pretty Ara took care of that before she brought Alcevan here,” Omago replied. “Alcevan will live for as long as Big Mommy keeps screaming. Artistic screaming deserves an audience, wouldn’t you say? There are solid stone walls between those two, so they won’t see each other or be able to speak to each other. They’ll exchange screams, and that’s all.”

  “Duets are a bit nicer than solos,” Keselo said.

  “It’s all over, then, isn’t it?” Rabbit said, feeling just a bit sad that his days in the Land of Dhrall were coming to an end.

  “Are you saying that you’ll actually miss this war, Rabbit?” Longbow asked.

  “Not the war as much as I’ll miss the friends I’ve made here.” Then he snapped his fingers. “What do you think, Keselo?” he asked. “Should we tell Longbow about the imitation of him that Big Mommy made just a while back?”

  “Are you sure that it won’t offend him?” Keselo asked.

  “It’s real hard to offend Longbow, friend Keselo,” Rabbit said. “Anyway, Longbow, it seems that you really impressed Big Mommy with your bow and your arrows—enough, anyway, that she made her own version of you. It wasn’t at all bad, either. Of course, it was a bug, so it had six legs instead of only four. After it’d learned to stand up on its two hind legs, it had four arms to work with. That meant that it could hold two bows and shoot two arrows at the same time. It wasn’t a half-mile away like you are, but up to a hundred or so paces away from its enemies, it could kill them two at a time.” Then an odd notion came to him. “I’d be willing to bet that Omago here could modify you just a bit and give you an extra two arms—or maybe take a quick look at an octopus and give you six arms altogether. You could kill a whole army all by yourself if you were built that way.”

  Longbow smiled faintly. “Very interesting, friend Rabbit,” he said. “And just where were you planning to set up your arrow factory after Omago gives me all those extra arms? I’ll need a lot of arrows, you know.”

  Rabbit winced. “I’ll forget all about this if you will, friend Longbow,” he said.

  “Whatever seems right to you, little friend.” Then he looked at Omago. “Are we finished here?” he asked.

  “Unless you’d like to stay and listen to the Vlagh scream and wail,” Omago replied.

  Longbow shrugged. “After you’ve heard a few hours of screaming, it starts to get a bit boring. Why don’t we go back to Gunda’s fort and let everybody know that the war’s over now, and that it’s not very likely that it’ll come back.”

  “Good idea,” Omago agreed. “Let’s go.”

  “Why didn’t you just drive a dozen or so arrows into her, Longbow?” Sorgan asked the archer after Omago had described the current condition of the Vlagh to their friends in the large room at the center of Gunda’s fort a few days later.

  Longbow shrugged. “Omago persuaded me not to,” he replied. “She might have taken a minute or so to die if I’d driven an arrow into her. Now that all her children are dead and she’ll never lay any more eggs that will give her other children, she’ll remain in that nest screaming in agony until the end of time. In a certain sense she’s paying for each and every one of our friends that the bug-people killed. I’d say that she probably wanted me to kill her, but I’ve always made a point of never giving the Vlagh anything she wanted.”

  “So she’s all alone in that hole in the ground screaming her lungs out,” Sorgan said. “I think I’ll go with Longbow on this one. Let her scream. She’s not close enough to any town to keep the people awake.”

  “Not exactly all alone, Captain,” Omago said. “My dear Ara grabbed the bug-woman called Alcevan and jammed her into the Vlagh’s nest as well. She’ll never see her mother, but she will hear her screaming. She’ll scream as well—and probably for just as long. I’m sure that most of you have come to realize that you never want to do anything that offends my mate, and Alcevan stepped over that line when she pushed Aracia into Lillabeth’s playroom. Aracia ceased to exist, but Alcevan will exist—and suffer—for all eternity.”

  “That goes quite a bit farther than getting a plateful of raw beans for supper,” Rabbit said.

  “A lot farther, yes.”

  “That pretty much brings an end to all these wars here in the Land of Dhrall, doesn’t it?” the Trogite Commander Narasan said as Zelana and her young brother Veltan entered the room.

  “Not yet, friend Narasan,” Rabbit’s captain declared. “Things aren’t over
here until we’ve stored all that gold we found in Aracia’s temple on board our ships.” He pursed his lips and then spoke to Zelana and Veltan. “Why don’t we just forget about the gold you two offered us to come here and fight this war?” he said.

  “Generosity, Sorgan?” Zelana said with a certain surprise.

  Sorgan shook his head. “Not really,” he replied. “Caution would be more accurate. We’ve got tons of gold down there in the temple, and too much gold would probably sink our ships.”

  “Wise decision there, Captain Hook-Beak,” Veltan agreed.

  Then Eleria and her big sister Balacenia came in to join them. “Where have you been, Bunny?” Eleria demanded.

  “Several of us had to go out into the Wasteland to put the Vlagh out of business, baby sister,” Rabbit replied.

  “Isn’t he just the nicest person we’ve ever seen?” Eleria said to the others as she climbed up into Rabbit’s lap. “You do owe me a lot of kisses, though, Bunny,” she said. “Fair is fair, after all. When you all took off like that you didn’t leave anybody at all here to give me kisses, so it’s time for you to start paying me what you owe me.”

  “I’ll get right on it, baby sister,” Rabbit promised.

  The discussion of what had happened in the nest of the Vlagh went on for most of the rest of that day. Then at the supper table when they were all feasting on Ara’s magnificent cooking, the warrior queen Trenicia turned to Commander Narasan. “Now that this is all over here in the Land of Dhrall, what are our plans, brave leader?”

  “We have plenty of time to discuss that, dear Queen Trenicia,” Narasan replied.

  “How much time?” she pressed.

  “I’d say the rest of our lives, glorious Trenicia,” Narasan replied bluntly.

  “You said what?” she demanded.

  “I thought it was very clear, dear queen,” Narasan said. “Get a firm grip on this, Your Majesty. You will not leave me—not ever. You are mine now.”

  “And you are mine,” she replied just as fervently.

  “We can discuss this when we’re alone,” Narasan said, looking slightly embarrassed by his own possessive remarks.

  “Right,” Trenicia replied, standing up. “Let’s go. I’ve been waiting for this particular discussion for months now.” Then she paused. “What took you so long?” she asked.

  Narasan actually blushed at that point.

  It was much later that night, but Rabbit found that he just couldn’t sleep. His memories of all the things that had happened here in the Land of Dhrall kept coming back to haunt him. In an odd sense, he was no longer totally a Maag. He still hungered for riches, of course, but that wasn’t all that unique. Keselo found gold to be at least as pretty as Rabbit did, and Prince Ekial was also attracted to gold. Longbow, however, was indifferent to it. His central goal in life had always been the destruction of the Vlagh and all her offspring. At the last moment, though, Longbow had set his arrow aside after Omago had advised him that in her current state of total isolation, the Vlagh might have welcomed four or five arrows to end her eternal grief.

  “This is the strangest place,” Rabbit murmured as he wandered around the dark corridors of Gunda’s fort. “I’m quite sure that I will miss it—and the friends I’ve met since I came here. My life will seem sort of empty for a long, long time, I’m afraid.”

  Then he drew in a long breath. “This isn’t going anywhere,” he muttered. “I might as well go back to bed and see if I can get some sleep.”

  He was quite sure that he wouldn’t, though, but he went back to give it another try.

  EPILOGUE

  IN

  THE

  LAND

  OF

  DREAMS

  1

  I’m not sure that this is really a very good idea, Vash,” Balacenia said to her brother as the younger gods and their elders gathered in Dahlaine’s home inside Mount Shrak. “Dahlaine’s people-people have access to this place. I’m sure that they’re nice enough, but this is a matter they probably shouldn’t know about. There are almost certain to be some arguments, and I don’t think we want people to know that the gods don’t agree about everything, do you?”

  “You may have a point there, dear sister,” Vash agreed. He squinted at Omago and Ara, who were standing somewhat apart from the others. “I’ll go mention your reservations to Mother and Father. Where would you say we should go?”

  “Where else, Vash?” Balacenia replied.

  “That place is ours, Balacenia,” Vash objected.

  “I know, and it’s so beautiful that all the others should agree with almost anything we say. We have had a few visitors there from time to time, and they’ve always agreed with anything we tell them.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, mighty leader.”

  “Why are you throwing that in my face, Vash?”

  “You might as well get used to it, Balacenia. You will be the Dominant this time. I’ll go see what Mother and Father have to say.”

  “Oh, bless you, Vash,” Balacenia replied.

  “Bless?”

  “Just practicing, baby brother. I haven’t been the Dominant for a long, long time. If I remember right, blessings make the others wiggle like puppies.”

  Vash grunted and went off to speak with Omago and Ara.

  “Do you pick on him like that all the time, Big-Me?” Eleria asked.

  “Only when it’s necessary, Little-Me.”

  After Vash had spoken briefly with Omago and Ara, he came back across the chamber. “They agreed that this might not be the best place to have this meeting,” he reported. “They’ll speak with Dahlaine about it. He’ll listen to them, but he might resent it if you and I were the ones who make the suggestion.”

  “Those two can be very useful,” Balacenia agreed.

  “I don’t see what’s wrong with Mount Shrak here,” Dahlaine objected. “I can keep all the local people out of here.”

  “I’m sure you can, dear Dahlaine,” Ara said, “but it’s winter here and sort of gloomy. I’ve seen this Land of Dreams Vash and Balacenia created out of pure imagination, and it’s probably the most beautiful place in the entire universe. We have an important decision to make, and beauty will make it nicer.”

  “I still don’t see why it’s necessary to go there,” Dahlaine grumbled.

  “I learned a long time ago that it’s not wise to offend the lady who runs the kitchen,” Omago said.

  “I don’t need food, Omago,” Dahlaine replied. “Kitchens don’t interest me, because I don’t eat.”

  “You ought to try it sometime,” Omago suggested. He frowned just a bit. “I suppose there might have been some obscure reason for that ‘don’t eat or sleep’ rule, but I think it’s out of date now.”

  “How do we get to this imitation place?” Dahlaine asked.

  “Your Dreamer, Ashad—who’s really Dakas—knows the way, big brother,” Balacenia told him. “We had a meeting there a while back. There were several things we needed to agree about, so we all went to the Land of Dreams to make some necessary decisions.”

  They all went on out through the long tunnel to the cave-mouth that opened out onto the snow-covered grassland. Then each of the Dreamers—or younger gods—took his or her elder by the hand, and they all rose up into the chill winter sky.

  Unlike the others, however, both of Balacenia’s hands were full. She and Eleria could not merge as the others did, so she was obliged to carry both Zelana and her alternate. Balacenia was quite certain that Eleria was the only possible successor for Aracia, but she was fairly sure that Eleria would violently object. There had to be something that only Ara and Omago could offer Eleria that would make the little girl willing to accept divinity. “I think I’m going to have to work on that a bit,” she murmured.

  “I didn’t quite catch that, dear,” Zelana said.

  “Just thinking out loud, Zelana. It’s a habit I picked up back in the days before people existed.”

  “That was a very lonely time, as
I recall,” Zelana agreed. “I used to recite poetry to trees and sing songs to Mother Sea.”

  “Did she like your songs?”

  “Some of them, yes. I could always tell which songs she liked, because she’d fill the sky with rainbows.”

  “And if she didn’t like them?”

  “Hailstorms, as I recall.”

  Balacenia winced. “Did you ever teach Eleria how to sing?”

  Zelana nodded. “It was a mistake, though. Her voice is so beautiful that it’d fill Mother Sea’s eyes with tears. It worked rather well if the weather had turned dry, though. Eleria can probably stir up a three-day rainstorm if we really need it. Is this Land of Dreams much farther away?”

  “No,” Balacenia replied. “It could be right here, if Vash and I wanted it to be. Vash is stirring up the aurora, though. Nobody argues with anybody else when the aurora’s in bloom.”

  The younger gods gently lowered their elders down onto the Land of Dreams, and Balacenia saw that Vash had outdone himself in the creation of the current aurora. They usually sort of lingered along the horizon, but this one seemed to be rising up from meadows and mountains on all sides of the Dreamland, and the beauty almost took Balacenia’s breath away.

  “Tell me, Vash,” Veltan said to the real version of Yaltar, “whatever possessed you and Balacenia to conjure up this beautiful place?”

  “It was a long, long time ago, Uncle. There weren’t any people—or animals, for that matter—and Balacenia and I were looking at twenty-five eons with nothing to do except maybe watch grass grow. After a few centuries of that, we really needed something else to look at. Balacenia had caught a brief glimpse of an aurora along the northern horizon, and then she and I drifted on up north—actually into the Domain of Dakas. I suppose you could say that we stole an aurora from Dakas and then planted it in a place that didn’t really exist—except in our Dream, of course. We spent centuries here soaking in the beauty of our Dream. It made that empty cycle bearable.”