“I’d say that Dahlaine’s cave’s quite a bit larger than your cave back in the forest, Athlan,” Longbow observed.
“Do you actually live in a cave, Athlan?” Zelana asked.
“It holds off the weather much better than a lodge does,” Athlan replied.
They followed Dahlaine into the large cave, and Athlan saw that the cave was even larger than he’d thought at first. “What are those things hanging down from the ceiling?” he asked Zelana.
“It’s a form of rock,” she explained. “Water seeps down through the mountain, and it picks up small amounts of certain minerals along the way. When it reaches the cave the minerals sort of stick together.”
“Judging from the size of those things, I’d say that small amounts of minerals wouldn’t come very close to what’s getting washed on down here.”
“It’s not the sort of thing that happens overnight, Athlan,” Zelana replied. “It might take as long as a thousand years for just a foot of one of those to develop.”
Athlan swallowed very hard.
“I wouldn’t pursue that much further, Athlan,” Longbow advised. “Zelana has a habit of answering questions, and if you ask her the wrong ones, you might have a lot of trouble with the answers.”
Athlan glanced up at the small light that seemed to be floating in the air above them.
“That would definitely be one of the things you don’t want to ask any questions about, my friend,” Longbow said. “Dahlaine has quite a few pets here in his cave. Let’s just call that light a ‘pet’ and let it go at that, shall we?”
“Right!” Athlan agreed fervently.
They reached what appeared to be living quarters of some kind about a quarter of an hour later.
“I’m awfully tired, Beloved,” the little girl Eleria said to Zelana when they reached that part of the cave. “If I don’t get some sleep fairly soon, I think I’ll start to fall apart.”
“Is there some side chamber nearby, Dahlaine?” Zelana asked. “The children need some sleep. We’ve been pushing them for the past few days, you know.”
“What about my playroom, uncle?” Ashad suggested. “It’s warm there and I’ve got several bison robes we could use to sleep on.”
“Good idea,” Dahlaine agreed. “Why don’t you show Yaltar and Eleria where it is? I think the other grown-ups and I’ll be talking for quite some time about things that don’t really concern you children.”
“We’ll see you in the morning then, uncle,” Ashad said, and the three children went off into a side tunnel in the cave.
“All right, then,” Dahlaine said, “if Zelana’s right—and she usually is—the creatures of the Wasteland are stirring up trouble just as hard as they can up here.” He smiled faintly. “I’ll borrow a term from our Maag friends here. I’d say that we’ve ‘whomped’ them hard twice so far, and now they’re trying to stir up trouble here in my Domain to distract us enough that we’ll be too busy to ‘whomp’ them again.”
“It sounds about right to me,” Sorgan Hook-Beak agreed. “Every time the bug-people or the snake-men tried to whomp us, we turned things around and whomped them instead. I don’t care how fast the Vlagh thing can lay eggs, we’ve still come out ahead, and even the stupidest thing in the whole wide world could see that if we go into a regular war, we’ll win and they’ll lose. Just about the only way they can avoid another ‘whomp’ will be to distract us from what we’re supposed to be doing. Right now I’d say that they’re doing everything they possibly can to stir up the natives of this part of Dhrall to make them fight each other instead of the servants of the Vlagh.” He looked directly at Dahlaine. “Have you got any strong feelings about that fellow off to the east who thinks that he’s god?”
“Very strong feelings, Captain Hook-Beak,” Dahlaine replied. “If you’d like, I can give you a few hints about how you’d go about reaching down his throat and tearing out his heart. Then if you want, I wouldn’t be at all disturbed if you cooked it and had it for supper.”
“I’ll save you a couple of bites, Lord Dahlaine,” Hook-Beak promised with an evil grin.
Athlan was roused from his sleep early the next morning by the smell of cooking meat. “What is that?” he asked Longbow. “It doesn’t smell at all like deer meat.”
“It wouldn’t,” Longbow replied. “Bison aren’t related to deer. There’s a Matan village near Dahlaine’s mountain, and the villagers brought food here earlier this morning.”
“If bison meat tastes as good as it smells, I can see why the Matans spend their time hunting those animals. If they’re going to provide the food while we’re here, this might just turn out to be a pleasant war.”
The little girl Eleria came out of the side tunnel into the large chamber. “I need a kiss-kiss, Longbow,” she said.
“You’re up early, Eleria,” Longbow said, lifting her and holding her in his arms.
“I need to talk with the Beloved. Where is she?”
“Outside with her brother. The sun’s coming up, so Zelana and Dahlaine are having breakfast. Did you sleep well?”
“Not really. Something happened in the middle of the night that sort of upset Ashad and Yaltar and me.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“I’m not sure if I should tell you about it, Longbow,” she said. “It’s one of those family things. Of course, you are part of the family, aren’t you?”
“Not quite, little one,” Longbow replied with a faint smile.
“Here she comes now,” Eleria said, pointing toward the chamber entrance.
“You’re up early, Eleria,” Zelana said. “Breakfast should be ready in just a little while.”
“We can worry about breakfast later, Beloved. Lillabeth had one of ‘those’ dreams last night, and I think it might cause some problems.”
Zelana looked a bit startled. “How do you know about Lillabeth’s dream?”
“We always know, Beloved. I thought you knew that we share our Dreams with each other. Anyway, Lillabeth is very upset because when she told your sister that the creatures of the Wasteland were moving toward the land of the north, your sister Aracia decided not to let anybody know about the dream.”
“She did what?” Dahlaine exclaimed.
“Lillabeth told us that your sister’s afraid that if you find out that the bug-people will be coming here instead of into her country, you’ll pull Narasan and his army out of her part of this land, and there won’t be anybody there to protect her. Lillabeth isn’t very happy about that. We’re supposed to warn people when we have those Dreams, but your sister won’t let Lillabeth do what she’s supposed to do.”
Dahlaine’s eyes suddenly bulged and his face turned pale.
“I’ll take care of this, big brother,” Zelana told him quite firmly. “You’ve got to make preparations for a war, so you’ll be very busy. I’m going on down to Aracia’s silly temple and straighten her out—once and for all. We don’t do things like this, and Aracia’s going to answer to me for this idiocy! Then I’ll find out about the Dream from Lillabeth herself and come right back here to tell you.”
FAMILY AFFAIR
1
Zelana followed Eleria back to the children’s sleeping chamber off to the side of Dahlaine’s central cave. Eleria’s announcement had startled her more than a little, and she thought it might be best to speak with Ashad and Yaltar to get a few more details before she went on down to confront her sister.
“We thought you all knew that we shared our Dreams with each other,” Yaltar said. “We weren’t trying to keep it a secret or anything. It all started when Eleria had that first Dream about the time when the world was just a baby. That was an awfully noisy time, wasn’t it?”
“Very noisy, yes. Are you saying that all four of you had exactly the same Dream at the same time?” Zelana asked, feeling more than a little startled.
“Not really, was it, Ashad?” Yaltar asked his brother.
“No, Eleria was doing the dreaming,” Ashad replied. “We c
ould see it, of course, but everything was coming from her. I think that Eleria’s pink pearl might have had something to do with that. Her jewel was the very first one any of us found, so she had the first Dream. We were all just sort of tagging along behind her, watching what was happening. Later on, Yaltar found his opal, and then he had his first Dream, and we all watched that one—in the same way that we’d watched Eleria’s. Then I found my agate, and I had my Dream. Now Lillabeth’s doing the dreaming, and the rest of us are watching. We all sort of know that it’s going to happen, though. The pretty lady wants it that way, I think.”
“Pretty lady?” Zelana asked, somewhat baffled.
“We aren’t supposed to talk about her, Beloved,” Eleria said. “She loves you and your sister and brothers, but she doesn’t want us to upset you right now because you’re very busy. Anyway, your sister’s trying to keep Lillabeth’s Dream a secret, because she’s afraid that if you and your brothers know about it, you’ll take all those soldiers away from her and bring them on up here to help your big brother. Your sister’s terribly afraid right now, and she wants lots and lots of soldiers in her country to protect her from the bugs. I think she was hoping that the next Dream would tell everybody that the bugs would attack her part of the world next and that everybody would run on over into her country to fight them off. Lillabeth’s Dream didn’t say that, though, so now your sister’s trying to hide it from everybody else.”
“I think she might be worried about how many soldiers the bug-people will kill when they come north,” Ashad said. “If all those soldiers get killed up here, there won’t be any left to protect her. That’s kind of silly, isn’t it? The soldiers haven’t lost any of these wars yet, so there’ll still be plenty of them left after they win the war up here. I don’t want to make you mad at me, Zelana, but your sister’s kind of silly, isn’t she?”
“I think it’s just about time for me to go on down there and slap the silly out of her,” Zelana said.
“Can we come along and watch?” Yaltar asked eagerly.
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” Zelana said grimly. “I’ll need Eleria, probably, but I think you boys should stay here. We never know when one of these Dreams are going to come along, and if one of you boys starts dreaming, Dahlaine will need to know about it immediately. Come along, Eleria. Let’s go on down and teach Aracia a few things.” She reached out and picked Eleria up and went on out of Dahlaine’s cave.
“Are you going to hit your sister, Beloved?” Eleria asked eagerly.
“Behave yourself, Eleria,” Zelana scolded the little girl as she walked up the steep side of Mount Shrak toward the peak. “You know that we never hit each other.”
“You could spank her, though, couldn’t you? Spanking and hitting aren’t exactly the same thing, are they?”
Zelana laughed almost in spite of herself. “We’ll see, child,” she said. “If nothing else works, maybe I will have to spank my sister.” She reached out with her mind in search of a good strong wind that was going in the right direction. “Now, I want you to just relax and stay calm, Eleria. We’ll be a long way up in the sky, and we’ll be moving very fast. I’ll hold you tight, so you won’t be in any danger at all. It might be best if you don’t look down—at least not right at first. After a while, it won’t bother you anymore.”
“I trust you completely, Beloved,” Eleria replied, “and I think that flying might be fun after I get used to it.”
“I’ve always enjoyed it. In a certain sense, flying’s a lot like swimming—except that you don’t get wet.” Then Zelana briefly touched a strong wind blowing down out of the northwest. “That one, I think,” she said, taking Eleria in her arms. Then she reached up to grasp the wind, and she and Eleria rose smoothly up into the sky, frightening a flock of geese as they went.
“Are those birds anything at all like Meeleamee and the other pink dolphins, Beloved?” Eleria asked.
“Not really, dear. Birds aren’t very clever at all.”
“Oh, my,” Eleria said, looking down at the forest far below.
“What is it, dear one?”
“Those trees are all red and gold, Beloved. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Indeed they are, Eleria,” Zelana said. “It’s autumn now, and sometimes autumn is the most beautiful time of the year.”
“Why do some trees stay green while others change their color?”
“Certain trees need to show off, dear. I’m sure that my big brother could explain why it happens. Dahlaine loves to explain things, and he can be very tedious about it. I prefer simpler answers. The trees are sad because summer’s almost over.”
“It will come back, though, Beloved. The trees know that, don’t they?”
“I’m sure they do. Some trees stay green all year because they stay awake. The trees that change color sleep through the winter.”
“Then those bright colors are just their way of saying ‘good-night’ to each other, isn’t it?”
Zelana laughed and pulled Eleria even closer. “I love you, child,” she said.
“And I love you, Beloved. How much farther is it to your sister’s country?”
“Not too far. We were lucky enough to find a wind that knows where it’s going. Every so often I encounter a wind that wanders off in all directions when I’m in a hurry.”
“Spank it, Beloved. That would make it do what it’s supposed to do, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m not sure that I’d know how to spank a wind,” Zelana said, laughing. “We should reach Aracia’s temple in just a little while. We’ll drift on in quietly, and I’ll drop you off in Lillabeth’s room before I confront Aracia. I don’t want you to be alarmed. I’m going to shout at my sister and call her nasty names. I want her to get excited enough to start saying ridiculous things right in front of Narasan and Trenicia. I’m fairly sure that she’ll deny everything that I say. You’ll have had time enough by then to explain things to Lillabeth, and when Aracia starts screaming, you two can come into the throne-room and cut the ground right out from under my silly sister. I want Narasan and Trenicia to realize that they shouldn’t believe anything Aracia tells them.”
“I think Lillabeth’s even unhappier with your sister than you are, Beloved,” Eleria replied. “We’re supposed to tell people about our Dreams. That’s why we have them, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is, child,” Zelana agreed. “I think it’s just about time for me to show my sister that telling lies will get her into trouble.”
“You don’t like her very much, do you, Beloved?”
“Not when she’s lying, I don’t.”
“Then we’ll have to teach her not to lie.”
They reached Aracia’s marble temple just as the sun was sinking down over the western horizon, and Zelana carried Eleria to Lillabeth’s room first. Then she rose up into the air again and listened carefully to her sister’s conversation with the Trogite called Narasan and the warrior queen Trenicia. The outlanders seemed to be having some trouble explaining things to Aracia and the fat man who spent all of his time making speeches.
Zelana drifted down through the polished marble dome of Aracia’s temple and then quite suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere in front of her sister’s throne.
Aracia flinched back and half rose from her throne.
“Don’t even think about it, Aracia,” Zelana said. “We’re going to settle this once and for all right here and now.”
“What are you talking about?” Aracia demanded.
“You’re lying, and you know it. What on earth possessed you to try to conceal Lillabeth’s Dream? Didn’t you know that the other Dreamers knew all about it?”
“That’s not possible!”
“Then how do you explain why I’m here and how I know that Lillabeth’s Dream told us that the creatures of the Wasteland were going to attack Dahlaine’s Domain next? I think you’ve been awake too long, Aracia. You’re starting to slide over the line into senility.”
“What’s this all about, Zelana?” Aracia demanded.
“Betrayal, Aracia. This idiocy of yours has put the entire Land of Dhrall in terrible danger. What were you thinking? You do know that if the servants of the Vlagh overrun Dahlaine’s Domain, the entire Land of Dhrall will fall into their hands, don’t you? In spite of that, you tried to keep Lillabeth’s Dream a secret.”
“I most certainly did not!”
“More lies, Aracia? Are you insane?”
“What’s this all about?” the warrior queen Trenicia demanded.
“You do know that the Dreamers are here to warn us when the creatures of the Wasteland are about to attack, don’t you?” Zelana replied. “Or did my idiot sister try to hide that from you? I wouldn’t be surprised if she had. Sister Aracia seems to be making a career out of lying and hiding the truth.”
Trenicia’s eyes narrowed, and she glared at Aracia. “What do you have to say about this?” she said.
Aracia had gone pale. “My sister’s just making this up to discredit me! She hates me! She’s always hated me!”
“That’s not true and you know it,” Zelana said in a voice filled with contempt.
“How dare you?” the fat priest standing to one side of Aracia’s throne exclaimed. “Holy Aracia never lies.”
Just then Eleria and Lillabeth, walking hand in hand, came into Aracia’s ornate throne-room. “I have dreamed,” Lillabeth announced, “and in my Dream, the creatures of the Wasteland moved up through a deep valley lined with crystal toward the lands of the far North.”
“Stop!” Aracia shouted. “I forbid you to say any more!”
“Greatly troubled were the people of the North,” Eleria picked up where Lillabeth had stopped, “for there were many signs that some of their friends were no longer loyal to the Elder God who holds dominion in the North.”
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” Aracia shrieked.
Eleria, however, continued, and Lillabeth joined her voice with Eleria’s, and they spoke as one. “And there was a plague that was not a plague, and many, many in the North died. And for the first time the servants of the Vlagh bore with them weapons which were not parts of their bodies. But in time, the creatures of the Wasteland that serve the Vlagh were consumed by a fire unlike any fire we have ever seen, and thus was the Dream ended, for victory was once more ours.”
Crystal Gorge: Book Three of the Dreamers Page 16